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THE 



MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL, 



COMPRISING A FULL STATEMENT OF 



ITS AIMS, METHODS. AND RESULTS, 



WITH FIGURED DRAWINGS OF 



SHOP EXERCISES IN WOODS AND METALS. 



BY 

C'Mf WOODWARD, A.B. (Harvard), Ph.D. (W.U.), 

ASSOCIATE AMERICAN SOCIETY CIVIL ENGINEERS, MEMBER AMERICAN SOCIETV 

MECHANICAL ENGINEERS, THAYER PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS AND 

APPLIED MECHANICS, DEAN OF THE POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL, 

AND DIRECTOR OF THE MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL, 

OF WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, ST. LOUIS, MO. 



" Hail to the skillful, cunning hand! 
Hail to the cultured mind ! 
Contending for the world's command. 
Here let them be combined." 



BOSTON : 

D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS. 

1906. 



V'i 
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Copyright, 1887, 
By C. M. woodward. 



MOV iS i^I^ 



PREFACE. 



This book really consists of four Parts ; namely : — 

J. The Historical Introduction and Chap. XIV. 

IL The exposition of the methods and scope of the school, with 
full details as regards the manual elements, in Chaps. II., III., IV., 
and XV. 

III. The results of manual training, as shown by the records and 
testimony of graduates and others, in Chaps. V. and VI. 

IV. Discussions of the educational, social, and economic bearings 
of manual training from various standpoints and at various times, 
in Chaps. VII. to XIII. 

It is possible that this classification may be of value to those who 
come for suggestions in specific directions. To others the arrange- 
ment may appear illogical, and the repetitions unnecessary. 

In defence of the arrangement I must say that I have had in 
mind two things : first and foremost, the probable state of mind of 
the reader who comes to this book to learn of a matter of which he 
has heard much, but knows little. He wants facts, arguments, and 
speculations, according to the stage of his progress in finding out 
what manual training really is, and what it aims at. And secondly, 
the desirability of sliowing clearly the growth and progress of ideas 
in the development of the school. 

As to the occasional repetitions of statements and arguments, I 
will say that no one is likely to read the book through consecutively. 
Those who do me the honor to read it at all will read by topics and 
separate chapters, and being thus read I doubt if the repetitions will 
be found objectionable. Of necessity, much common material ap- 
pears in every address. The earlier addresses were quite general 
in their treatment, and I have preferred to let them stand fairly 
complete. 

I trust no apology will be necessary for inserting addresses which, 
in one form or another, have alread}' appeared in print. The dis- 
cussions they contain relate to matters which are still of first 
importance and general interest, and I have felt that I could not 



vi PREFACE. 

greatly improve upon the form in which they were originally pre- 
sented. They contain my observations and reflections while actually 
engaged in daily supervision of a manual training school. They are 
therefore personal in character and positive in tone. I insert them 
because I have reason to believe that they may still be of service 
to those whose opportunities for testing theories have been less for- 
tunate. 

The critical reader may find me inconsistent in addresses several 
years apart. If so, I beg him to remember that I have not stood 
still the past fifteen years during which I have been in contact 
with advanced ideas on education and experimenting with manual 
methods. 

I am well aware that many will be disappointed that I do not enter 
in detail into the theory and practice of manual training in the 
primary and grammar schools. To such I give the following reasons 
for having limited myself to the training of pupils of from fourteen 
to eighteen or more years : — 

1. To have covered the whole field, even had I been able to do it, 
would have obliged me to make a book much too large. Very few 
persons would have been equally interested in the higher and the lower 
grades, and a separation of the parts would have been necessary. 

2. The manual training of the lower grades has already been quite 
fully treated by others, while the ground I go over has scarcely been 
touched by a practical teacher. It must suffice if I mention the 
work of Prof. Strait, the reports of Dr. Felix Adler, the recent 
publications of Prang & Co., and more recently, the manual of 
Superintendent S. G. Love. 

3. While I have very positive ideas about the methods which 
should be employed to train the pupils of the lower grades, I have 
bad no experience in applying them. I therefore consider myself 
incompetent to speak with authority in regard to the details of the 
instruction. We have already had too man}' mere theorizers. 

I bow reverentl}' before those who not only have enlightened ideas, 
but who have thoughtfully, intelligently, and repeatedly put them to 
the test of actual use. For such T ask respectful consideration at 
the hands of parents and teachers ; for myself and my work in my 
own field, I ask neither more nor less. 

C. M. WOODWARD. 
Washington University, St. Louis, 
Sept. 30, 1887. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Historical Introduction 1-15 

II. The First Year of the Manual Training School . 16-72 

III. The Second Year of the Manual Training School . 73-125 

IV. The Third Year of the Manual Training School . 126-149 
V. The Records and Testimony of Graduates . . . 150-167 

VI. What Others who have seen it say of the Results 

OF Manual Training 168-180 

VII. The Complementary Nature of Manual Training. 

(Saratocja Address of 1882) 181-201 

VIII. The Fruits of Manual Training. (Saratoga Address 

of 1883) 202-213 

IX. Manual Training a Feature in General Education. 

(Philadelphia Address of 1885) 214-239 

X. The Origin, Aims, Methods, and Dignity of Polytech- 
nic Training. (St. Louis Address of 1873) . . . .240-260 
XI. Manual Education. (St. Louis Address of 1878) . . 261-288 
XII. Extracts from the Prospectus of 1879 .... 289-296 

XIII. The Province of Public Education. (Chicago Address 

of 1887) 297-326 

XIV. European Schools 327-334 

XV. Plans, Shop Discipline, Teachers, Reports, etc. . . 335-350 

APPENDICES. 

I. St. Louis Manual Training School Course of Study . 351 
II. Toledo Manual, Training School Course of Study 

for Girls 352-353 

III. Daily- Program of the Toledo High and Manual 

Training School 354 

IV. Manual Training in the High School. (Address of Gen. 

Francis A. Walker at Chicago, 1887) 355-357 

V. Manual Training in School Education. (By Sir Philip 

Magnus) . 358-360 

vii 



THE MANUAL TRAmiNG SCHOOL. 



CHAPTER I. 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 
THE GROWTH OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 

IN speaking of the " Aims, Methods, and Results of Manual 
Training," I shall not hesitate to refer freely to the Manual 
Training School of Washington University of St. Louis. I 
do not assume that it is perfect, but it appears to me that 
its methods are more matured, its theories more thoroughly 
reduced to practice, and its appliances more complete than in 
any other school I know. No one knows better than I our 
failings, nor does any one feel more strongly the necessity for 
continued improvement in the working details of our school. 
Nevertheless, the school comes nearer to my ideal than any 
other that I know. 

I shall therefore give our methods and results as those most 
likely to be of use to others, tho I shall not fail to draw from 
other sources whatever shall appear to add to the value and 
completeness of my exposition. 

For the sake of giving honor where honor is clearly due, the 
following brief sketch of the origin and growth of the Manual 
Element in Education is given. 

In 1865 John Boynton of Templeton, Mass., gave 1100,000 
for the endowment and perpetual support of a Free Institute 
for the Youth of Worcester County, Mass. He thus explained 

1 



2 THE GROWTH OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT. [Chap. I 

his objects : " The aim of this school shall ever be the instruc- 
tion of youth in those branches of education not usually 
taught in the public schools, which are essential and best 
adapted to train the young for practical life ; " especially such 
as were intending to be mechanics, or manufacturers, or farmers. 

In furtherance of this object, ten months later, in 1866, 
Ichabod Washburn of Worcester gave 825,000, and later 
'f50,000 more to erect, equip, and endow a machine-shop which 
should accommodate twenty apprentices and a suitable number 
of skilled workmen to instruct them and to carry on the shop 
as a commercial establishment. 

The apprentices were to be taught the use of tools in work- 
ing wood and metals, and to be otherwise instructed, much as 
was customary fifty years ago for boys learning a trade. 

The Worcester Free Institute was opened for students in 
November, 1868, as a technical school of about college grade ; 
and the use of the shops and shop instruction was limited to 
those students in the course of mechanical engineering. Thus 
did the Worcester School under the leadership of Prest. C. O. 
Thompson incorporate tool-instruction and shop-practice into 
the training of mechanical engineers. Its pupils were all over 
sixteen j^ears of age and its methods of tool-instruction were 
those of ordinary commercial shops. It was in fact the com- 
bination of the ordinary European engineering school with 
an ordinary machine-shop. 

In the same year, 1868, Victor Delia- Vos introduced into 
the Imperial Technical (engineering) School at Moscow the 
Russian method of class-instruction in the use of tools. Here 
the students were eighteen years old on admission, and all 
were to become government engineers. The great value of 
the work of Delia- Vos lay in the discovery of the true method 
of tool-instruction, for without his discovery the later steps 
would have been impossible. 

In 1870, under the direction of Prof. Robinson and Prest. 
J. M. Gregory of the University of Illinois, a wood-working shop 
was added to the appliances for the course in architecture, and 
an iron-working shop to the course in mechanical engineering 
in that institution. In 1871, the Stevens Institute of Hoboken, 



Chap.I.J SHOPnOMK IN WAiUllNGTON UNIVERSITY. 3 

N.J., munificently endowed by Edwin A.Stevens, as a school 
of mechanical engineering, fitted up a series of shops for the 
use of its students. 

The next step forward was taken by Washington University 
in St. Louis in providing for all its engineering students 
systematic instruction in both wood and metals. In 1872, a 
large shop in the Polytechnic School was equipped with work- 
benches, two lathes, a forge, a gear-cutter and full sets of 
carpenters', machinists', and forging tools. The first work 
undertaken, was the construction of models for the illustration 
of mechanical principles. The inability of the students to use 
the tools with any facility soon led to the introduction of 
exercises for the sole purpose of tool-instruction. Thus un- 
consciously we were following in the steps of Delia- Vos. This 
work was so far systematized as to be reported as follows in the 
University Catalogue of 1875 : — 

" During the past year the students of each class [the four polytechnic 
classes being required to attend without regard to their course of study, 
while the classical students were at liberty to attend] have worked syste- 
matically in the shop under the direction of the professors, assisted by a 
skillful carpenter and a pattern-maker. The general method of conducting 
this work is as follows : A sketch of the piece or task to be constructed is 
given a class with all needed dimensions. Each student then makes a care- 
ful drawing of it to some convenient scale, with details and exact measure- 
ments. 

" The class then goes to the shop, is furnished with the requisite materials 
and tools, and each member is shown by an expert how to execute the work. 
Every piece must be reasonably perfect- or it is rejected and a new one is 
required. Although the students work in the shop no more than four 
hours per week, the experience is valuable. It is not supposed of course 
that skilled work can be produced by this method, but it is certain that such 
training will make better judges of workmanship." 

Thus far had we progressed when the Philadelphia Exposi- 
tion of 1876 was opened. 

None of us knew any thing of the Moscow school, or of the 
one in Bohemia in which the Russian method had been adopted 
in 1874. The Russian exhibit at Philadelphia was less of a 
surprise to me than to many. It showed with remarkable 
fullness and logical arrangement the true educational method 



4 THE GROWTH OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT. [Chap. I. 

of tool-instruction. It presented, clear-cut and definite, what 
before had been ill defined or unthought of. Before referring 
to the great work of Prof. Runkle in presenting the Russian 
method to the American people, I will give the story of our 
first series of workshops in the old " Philibert Mansion " on the 
ground where the University gymnasium now stands. 

In the summer of 1877, having outgrown our single shop, we 
transformed an old dwelling-house into shops, using the cham- 
bers for a carpenter-shop, the parlors for a machine-shop, and 
the basement for a forging-shop. 

The Freshmen had benchwork in wood, the Sophomores 
wood-turning, the Juniors metal turning and fitting, and the 
Seniors forging. At that time, I wrote as follows in reference 
to Mr. Gottlieb Conzelman who had given the money for fitting 
up those shops : — 

" I feel so sure that from this small beginning important consequences 
are to follow, that I almost envy Mr. Conzelman the satisfaction he will 
certainly feel in having contributed to its foundation." 

For three years, with no essential change of plan, the shops 
were used. The instruction was very general, and our success 
with the polytechnic students and a class of thirty boys from 
Smith Academy of preparatory grade pointed out the way for 
the Manual Training School, whose building was erected 
in 1879, and which was opened in September, 1880. 

In his report of 1876, Prest. J. D. Runkle, of the Mass. 
Institute of Technology, gave a full exposition of the theory 
and practice of tool-instruction of Delia- Vos as exhibited at the 
Philadelphia Exposition, and he recommended that without 
delay the course in mechanical engineering at the Institute be 
completed by the addition of a series of Instruction Shops. The 
suggestion was acted on, and in the spring of 1877 a class of 
mechanical engineering students was given instruction in 
chipping and filing. In his report of 1877, Prest. Runkle 
announced his shops as "near completion." 

For this vigorous action, and above all for his appreciative 
reports on the Russian methods, Prest. Runkle deserves the 
praise of American educators. Mr. Runkle looked deeper into 



Chap. I.] THE MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL ESTABLISHED. 5 

the problem than had Delia- Vos ; he saw that shop-instruction, 
essential to a mechanical engineer, had elements of value in a 
general education. 

The School of Mechanic Arts is a sub-department of the Insti- 
tute. It was established by vote in 1876 and opened in 1877. 

It has a two-years' course of study and is open to boys not 
less than fifteen years of age. I am not aware of its being- 
regarded as in any respect a preparatory school for the Insti- 
tute proper, or for any college course, though the training is 
exceedingly general in its bearing. 

The St. Louis Manual Training School was established June 
6, 1879. It embodied hopes long cherished and plans long 
formed.! 

For the first time in America the age of admission to school- 
shops was reduced to fourteen years as a minimum, and a very 
general three-years' course of study was organized. The ordi- 
nance by which the school was established specified its objects 
in very general terms : — 

"Its objects shall be instruction in mathematics, drawing, and the Eng- 
lish branches of a high-school course, and instruction and practice in the use 
of tools. The tool-instruction, as at present contemplated, shall include car- 
pentry, wood-turning, pattern-making, iron clipping and filing, forge-work, 
brazing and soldermg, the use of machine-shop tools, and such other instruc- 
tion of a similar character, as it may be deemed advisable to add to the 
foregoing fi'om time to time. 

" The students will divide their woi'king hours, as nearly as possible, 
equally between mental and manual exercises. 

" They shall be admitted, on examination, at not less than fourteen years 
of age, and the course shall continue three years," 

Another article is. as follows : — 

" For every sum of f 1,500 contributed for the establishment or permanent 
endowment of said school, the donor shall be entitled to a certificate of 
scholarship under which he shall have the right to send one scholar to said 
Manual Training School free of tuition charges, so long as said school shall 
exist.'' 

For the sake of showing that our general plan and policy 
were fully outlined at that time, I give some extracts from our 
Prospectus published in 1879 : — 

1 See Chap. X. for Address of 1873. 



6 THE GROWTH OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT. [Chap. I. 

" The management of this school does not propose tliat its shops shall 
enter into competition with manufacturing establishments. Proprietors of 
machine-shops and factories need not look upon this institution as a rival. 

" In the next place, the scope of a single trade is too narrow for educa- 
tional purposes. Manual education should be as broad and liberal as intel- 
lectual. A shop which manufactures for the market, and expects a revenue 
from the sale of its products, is necessarily confined to salable work, and a 
systematic and progressive series of lessons is impossible. 

"If the object of the shop is education, a student should be allowed to 
discontinue any task or process the moment he has learned to do it well. If 
the shop were intended to make money, the students would be kept at work 
on what they could do best, at the expense of breadth and versatility." 
Prospectus, p. 17. 

" One great object of the school is to foster a higher appreciation of the 
VALUE AND DIGNITY OF INTELLIGENT LABOR, and the worth and respecta- 
bility of laboring men. A boy who sees nothing in manual labor but mere 
brute force, despises both the labor and the laborer. With the acquisition 
of skill in himself, comes the ability and willingness to recognize skill in 
his fellows. 

" When once he appi-eciates skill in handicraft, he regards the skillful 
workman with sympathy and respect." 

" It is believed that, to all students, witliout regard to plans for the future, 
the value of the training which can be got in shop work, spending only eiglifc 
or teir hours per week, is abundantly sufficient to justify the expense of 
materials, tools, and teachers." lhid,p. 10. 

In a four-page circular issued in the summer of 1880 before 
the new school was opened, occurred the following paragraph : — 

" The Manual Training School is not a viere workshop ; the head is to be 
ti'ained even more than the hand. Specific ti-ades will not be taught; the 
tool-education will be liberal, extending impartially through all the shops. 

" It is not expected that every boy who attends the school will become a 
mechanic, but we have reason to believe that a boy's experience in the school 
will clearly indicate whether he is fit to become a mechanic or not." 

In subsequent chapters 1 shall give the theory and organization 
of the school in detail. 

At this point I will only give some personal matters relating 
to the origin of the school, and a summary of its history during 
the seven years it has completed. 

In an essay on " Manual Education in the Polytechnic 
School," published October 1, 1877, I pointed out the features 
of a school that should mve a general mechanical course. 



Chap. I,] THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME. 7 

Again, in 1878, before the St. Louis Social Science Association 
I said : — 

" The manual education which begins in the kindergarten should never 
cease. Just how we shall supply the missing links in the chain which joins 
the kindergarten with the fully equipped shops of the polytechnic school, 
we cannot with certainty suggest. 

" The problem is an open one, and thousands of earnest and intelligent 
educators are devoting themselves to its solution. 

" I trust that St. Louis will in this, as in many other educational matters, 
contribute largely. . . . 

" Girls should be taught [besides drawing] needle- craft, and, in the higher 
grades, the elements of cooking. . . . 

" At ten years give boys knives and gauges and hammers and saws and 
squares. Let them carve in soft wood and plaster, and learn to strike true and 
square blows. At twelve they are ready to use the plane, the chisel, and the 
whole chest of tools. Until you reach machine tools, the shop outfit may 
be of the simplest character. Benches, vises and a half-dozen tools for each 
student in a class is all ; the whole cost would hardly exceed that of the 
furniture in an ordinary schoolroom." 

These suggestions, coupled wdth statements and explanations 
of what was being done in Moscow, in Paris, in the Netherlands, 
and in Worcester and Boston, led Mr. Samuel Cupples to offer 
to assist in the establishment and support of a more elementary 
school in which manual training should be a prominent feature. 
He offered to give 83,000 a year for five years for the current 
expenses of the school. Messrs. Edwin Harrison and Gottlieb 
Conzelman, both of whom had contributed to the shop outfit in 
the polytechnic school already referred to, agreed to co-operate. 
Dr. Eliot, chancellor of the University, presented the land ; Mr. 
Harrison erected the building ; Mr. Conzelman partially 
furnished it; and with Mr. Cupples to help meet its current 
expenses, the school was an assured fact. 

In addition to these four men, fully twenty other people 
contributed sums varying from f 100 to 82,000, to complete the 
equipment. 

Such was the origin of the first real Manual Training School 
for students of intermediate grade. All other steps in the 
workshop direction had been with older students, and in 
strictly technical schools ; or they had been, as in France and 
Belgium, " trade " schools. Here was a large school for general 



8 THE GROWTH OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT. [Chap. I. 

education on a new and clearly defined plan, admitting boys as 
young as fourteen years. 

The origin of the name is a matter of some interest. The 
author had alreadj^ published two essays on "'Manual Educa- 
tion," 1 and the phrase " manual training " had been freely used. 
Without hesitation, therefore, he suggested " Manual Training 
School " as an appropriate name. At first the name did not 
commend itself to the chancellor of the University. It had a 
flavor of the army about it, he feared, and it failed to suggest 
the thoroughly intellectual nature of all the work. At the 
same time it was desirable to prevent any chance of confusing 
the school with a variety of " manual labor " schools which 
during the last fifty years had appeared in various parts of the 
country." 

In spite of Shakespere, there is much in a name, and it was 
desirable that the name should not create a prejudice against 
the school. It is possible that the chancellor was right; it is 
certain that we have not escaped misapprehension and prejudice, 
tho correct ideas seem at last to j^revail. The name appears 
to have been finally received with favor, and I doubt if the con- 
cession is to be regretted.^ 

The original Managing Board of the School consisted of 
Messrs. Edwin Harrison, John T. Davis, Henry W. Eliot, 
Samuel Cupples, and Gottlieb Conzelman. Since the organiza- 
tion of the school the following members have been added ; — 
Messrs. William Brown, Ralph Sellew, and William L. Huse. 



1 The paper of May, 1878, printed by G. I. Jones & Co., St. Louis, was after- 
wards published by E. Steiger of New York. 

2 The writer has now in his possession the following list of suggestions handed 
him by Dr. Eliot with the statement that the last one was the least preferred. 

PBor. Woodward. 

My dear Sir, — I have thought over all the names, searched the dictionaries and etymologies, 
— but can only come back to what we once considered and rejected: Mechanical School op 
Washington University. 

It is better- than : Hand-and-Head-Work School, Technical School, Industrial 
School, Trade School or Hand-Trade School, Skilled Labor School, School op 
Industrial Arts, or Manual Training School which I put last as being misleading and 
somewhat belittling. 

Yours, W. G. Eliot. 

The "Mechanic Art" School of Boston is still so named; and Mr. Courtlandt 
Palmer of the Grammercy Park School, New York, speaks of his "Tool-House." 



Chap. l] THE ANNALS OF THE SCHOOL. 9 

The following condensed sketch of the progress of the school 
will suffice for general purposes. 

The original building erected by Mr. Harrison at an expense 
of 113,000 was 100 feet by 50 and 40, and fronted Eighteenth 
Street ; it is well shown in the accompanying cut. [See next 
page. Fig. 2.] The third floor contained the study and recitation 
rooms ; the lower stories, the shops. 

With the exception of the engine and a supply of tools for 
the students of the engineering (polytechnic) school, the shops 
were furnished only as they were needed by the growing school. 
The first year only wood-working facilities were needed ; the 
second year, forging ; and the third year, the fitting (machine) 
shop. 

On September 6, 1880, the school opened with a single class 
of about 50 pupils. The whole number enrolled during the first 
year was 67. A public exhibition of drawing and shop-work 
was given June 16, 1881. 

The second year of the school opened September 12. 188L 
and closed June 14, 1882. There were two classes, 61 pupils 
belonging to the first year, and 46 to the second year, making 
107 in all. 
, During the summer of 1882, the large addition fronting 
Washington Avenue was built and furnished. This addition 
cost, including the land, $25,000. About $5,000 was spent in 
additional tools, furniture and shop appliances. 

By this extension the capacity of the school was nearly 
doubled, and its facilities were well balanced. The result is an 
exceedingly satisfactory arrangement for a school which must 
provide all the features of the daily program. The money 
for the large addition was furnished in equal parts by Messrs. 
Ralph Sellew and G. Conzelman. A view of the building is 
shown in the frontispiece, and the details of the floor plans are 
given later in the book. 

The third year of the school opened September 11, 1882, and 
closed June 14, 1883, with the graduation of its first class. 
Twenty-nine young men received diplomas and medals. The 
enrollment for the year was 176. 

The fourth year of the school opened September 10, 1883. 



10 



THE GROWTH OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT. [Ohap. I 



The enrollment for the year was 201. Twenty-nine students 
received diplomas in June. 




The fifth year began September 8, 1884. The enrollment was 
218. Thirty-nine students graduated at the end of the year. 

During the year 1884, the school lost two of its best and 
earliest friends in the death of two of its managers, Ralph 
Sellew and Gottlieb Conzelman. 



Chap. I.] OTHER MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOLS. 11 

At the same time, through their liberality and the co-oper- 
ation of Mr. Samuel Cupples, a member of the Managing Board 
from the first, an endowment of $115,000 was secured to the 
school.^ 

The sixth year opened September 14, 1885. The enrollment 
for the year was 234. The number of students graduating was 
forty-jive. 

It is interesting to note that these forty-five, and one who 
remained to the end but failed to win a diploma, represent 
just 100 boys who during the three years had belonged to the 
class. The actual graduation of 45 per cent of those at any 
time belonging to the class may fairly represent the tenacity of 
our classes. 

The seventh year closed on June 8, 1887 with the graduation 
of fifty-two boys. The enrollment of the year was 230. 

MANUAL TRAINING ELSEWHERE. 

The growth of manual training as shown by the establish- 
ment of other and similar schools has been most remarkable. 

It is impossible for me to mention all, but a few deserve to 
be named. Nearly every polytechnic, agricultural and mechan- 
ical school in the country has shop-work incorporated in its 
technical courses. The manual training school proper is of 
lower grade, and far more general in its character. 

The Baltimore Manual Training School, a public school, on 
the same footing as the high school, was opened in 1883. 



1 A few days before his death Mr. Sellew came to a definite agreement with 
Messrs. Cupples and Conzelman, to contribute $25,000 in the course of five years, 
towards a permanent endowment for the School, the income of which should 
chiefly be used to secure the admission and instruction of worthy boys in strait- 
ened circumstances. 

Although the agreement had not been recorded in legal form at the time of 
Mr. Sellew 's death, it has since been fully executed, in accordance with the original 
intention, by Mr. T. G. Sellew, of New York, as the residuary legatee of the estate. 

In memory of Ralph Sellew and of his profound interest and liberality towards 
the school, the Board of Managers adopted the following resolution on the 19th of 
February, 1884 : — 

"Resolved, That to perpetuate his (Ralph Sellew's) name and the memory of his good 
works, a gold medal, to be known as the ' Sellew Medal,' shall be awarded annually to that mem- 
ber of the graduating class who in the opinion of the teachers and committee stands highest in 
his claes." 



12 



THE GROWTH OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT. 



[Chap. L 



The Chicago Manual Training School, established as an incor- 
porated school by the Commercial Club of that city, was opened 
in January, 1884. The school is in a beautiful building, and is 
admirably equipped in every way. Under the able direction of 
Dr. H. H. Belfield it is deservedly popular. Its last catalogue 




Fig. 2. Chicago Manual Training School. 

shows a list of 190 students. Fig. 2 gives a view of the build- 
ing of the Chicago school.^ 

Manual training was introduced into the high school of Eau 
Claire, Wisconsin, in 188-1. 



J For the record of its graduates see Chapter V. 

Tlie engraving of the Chicago Manual Training School, was made from a 
drawing of the building made by a pupil of that school from actual measurements 
made by himself. 



Chap.!.] THE SCOTT MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. 



13 



The "Scott Manual Training School" was organized as a 
part of the high school of Toledo in 1884. A picture of the 




manual portion of the building is shown in Fig. 3. For floor 
plans, etc., of the Toledo School, see Chapter XV. 



14 THE GROWTH OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT. [Chap. L 

Manual training was introduced into the College (high 
school) of the City of New York in 1884. 

The Philadelphia Manual Training School, a public high 
school, was opened in September, 1885. 

The Omaha high school introduced manual training in 1885. 

The Grammercy Park Tool-House, New York City, was 
opened in 1884. 

The Manual Training School of Denver University was 
opened in September, 1885, as a preparatory school. In 1886, 
tuition in it was made free to Colorado boys. 

Dr. Adler's Workingman's School for poor children has for 
several years taught manual training to the very lowest grades.^ 

Swathmore College, near Philadelphia, has for two years had 
regular manual training. 

The Cleveland Manual Training School was incorporated in 
1885, and opened in connection with the city high school, 
in 1886. 

New Haven, which had for some time encouraged the use of 
tools by the pupils of several of its grammar schools, in Sep- 
tember, 1886, opened a regular shop and furnished systematic 
instruction in tool-work. 

The school board of Chicago added manual training to the 
course of the "West Side High School " in September, 1886. 

The " Technical School of Cincinnati " was opened in Sep- 
tember, 1886. It is in all but the name a manual training- 
school. 

In a large range of public and private schools of still lower 
grades manual exercises of a rather fugitive character have 
been introduced, which may lead to the establishment of sys- 
tematic tool and drawing instruction. 

At the risk of appearing to overlook equally important move- 
ments elsewhere, of which I have little or no information, I will 

1 I have not space to give even a sketch of this most admirable school. Unlike 
the Manual Training School proper, it is a school for the youngest children. Its 
course of study ends at the age of fourteen, just when our school begins. For an 
exposition of its thoroughly philosophical and practical curriculum, I must refer 
the reader to the elaborate reports of Dr. Felix Adler. As a practical test of 
manual methods for children from the kindergarten age to the high school, it is 
worthy of the most careful study. 



Chap, l] the TULANE HIGH SCHOOL. 15 

venture to name the very suggestive public school experiments 
in wood-work in Boston, Mass., and in Peru and Moline, 111., in 
each case under the direction of the superintendent of public 
schools. 

A preparatory department of Tulane University, New Or- 
leans, known as the Tulane High School has been established 
as a regular manual training school. It is reported as in a 
very flourishing condition.^ 

What has been done in this direction is but a feeble indica- 
tion of the profound interest prevailing. In every city the 
matter is under discussion, and in many steps have been taken 
towards a regular establishment. Another year will doubtless 
see public manual training schools in Boston, St. Paul, Min- 
neapolis,^ Louisville, San Francisco, and Milwaukee. 

1 Prof. J. M. Ordway, the director of the Tulane High School, was for some 
years in practical charge of the Mechanic Art School of the Massachusetts Insti- 
tute of Technology, though filling the chair of Applied Chemistry. 

2 Since writing the above, manual training has been introduced into the high 
school of MianeaiJolis. 



16 



FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL, [ciap. IL 



CHAPTER II. 



THE FIRST YEAR OF THE MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL, 



IT will be more convenient for those who hope to be guided 
somewhat by our experience, if I give in detail the work 
and appliances of the several classes or grades separately. I 
shall therefore devote this chapter to the work of the first year 
in the school ; and I shall describe not so exactly my school 
(which has, I am painfully aware, many shortcomings), as an 
ideal school, which, better than any real^ shall embody the 
essential features I wish to present. 

The boys on admission average fifteen years old, — none are 
less than fourteen. All have sustained fairly an examination 
in elementary arithmetic (written and oral), geography, com- 
position (including spelling, penmanship and the use of good 
English), and reading. 

I shall assume that there are seventy -two boys in the class, 
arranged in three equal divisions.^ 

The DAILY program'-^ is as follows: — 



Division. 


9—10. 


10—11. 11—12. 


13-1. 


1—3. 


3—3. 


3—4. 


I. 


1 

Wood-Shop. Mathe- 
matics. 


Science, 


to 

CO 

« 


Latin 
or 

English. 


Drawing. 


IL 


Mathe- 
matics. 


Latin 

or 

English. 


Wood-Shop. 


Drawing. 


Science. 


III. 


Latin 

or 

English. 


Mathe- 
matics. 


Science. 


Drawing. 


Wood-Shop. 



1 Three divisions, or a multiple of three divisions, is the most convenient 
number for a class, as all the shop appliances are thus kept in continuous use. 

2 For a program which gives an hour-and-a-half instead of two hours daily to 
shop, see Appendix for the program of the Toledo school. 



Chap. IL] school PROGRAM AND APPLIANCES. 17 

It will be observed that each division has three recitations 
for which three full hours are allowed. If the actual recitation 
time is but forty minutes per subject, the boys have twenty 
minutes after reciting for studying under the eye of the 
teacher. About two hours of solid study per day should be 
done at home. 

It may be assumed that the drawing teacher is also the 
mathematical teacher ; and that the science teacher is also the 
language teacher. One teacher has entire charge of the shop- 
work. The class therefore requires three teachers. 

The appliances are readily described : — 

1. An assembly room (which may also be used as a recitation- 
room) with seventy-two single desks and chairs. 

2. A drawing room (fitted also as a recitation-room), with 
twenty-four drawing stands, and a case for seventy-two drawing 
boards. 

3. A shop about forty feet square, furnished as described 
later on. 

4. A store-room in which lumber is kept and where stock 
may be reduced to " blank " sizes by a band-saw. Cupboards in 
which finished exercises may be put away for exhibition may 
stand at any convenient places. 

5. I should not omit, in addition to the usual wardrobe, a 
spacious and well-furnished lavatory where twenty-four boys 
may wash at once. 

All the rooms are above ground, well lighted with windows 
running to the ceiling, and well ventilated. In cold weather 
the ventilation should be effected without resorting to the 
windows. 

Returning now to the program, we find a great deal that is 
familiar to every teacher. 

The mathematics of the yea,v is higher arithmetic and algebra, 
about twenty-four weeks of the former and fifteen of the latter, 
with five recitations per week. 

The science is Huxley's Primer, physical geography, and 
botany, with individual collections and herbariums, and class 
excursions; or the equivalent of the above. 

The language stud}' is English lessons once a week for all, 



18 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL, [chap. IL 

and a choice between Latin on the one hand and more English 
lessons and history on the other, four times per week. 

Under the head of drawing, penmanship comes two half- 
hours per week. 

DRAWING. 

I must say considerable about drawing, as very few teachers 
have had suitable opportunity for the study of projections, and 
for instrumental work. 

We begin with free-hand projection work on the blackboard. 
Plane-faced blocks are used as models, and the pupils are taught 
to make three projections and to arrange them consistently as 
in Fig. 5, which gives three " views " of a block which is 




Fig. 4. Obthograi'hic and Isometiuc Projections. 

shown in " isometric " projection in the lower corner. The 
three views are those indicated by the arrows A, B, and C. 
A may be called the " top " view ; B the " front " view ; and 
C the "side" view, looking toivards the right. The observer 
is supposed to be so far from the object that there appears 
no convergence between parallel lines. In every projection, 
invisible lines (corners, edges, etc.) are drawn broken (with 
short dashes).^ 



1 The principles involved in orlhograpliic drawing may thus be concisely 
stated: — 

1. All lines which are perpendicular to the picture plane are projected in points. 

2. The projections of lines parallel to the picture plane are parallel and equal 
to the lines themselves. 



Chap. II.] EXAMPLE OF A WOBKING DBA WING, 



19 



Another example of a working drawing is shown in Fig. 5. 
Construction lines are made of fine dots. 

This figure gives a top view, an end view, and a side view of 
the mortise piece, the last as seen from the right. In isometric 
projection is shown the tenon-piece and wedge which are to fill 
the mortise. The 45° line shown in the figure gives a con- 
venient means of finding the side view from the other views 
without the use of measuring tools, using only T-square and 
triangle. 











/ M* 




/• / 


1^- 


"I* I ^_ - _ 


--^ 






;-1 -'V 






Fig. 5. A Beveled Cokner-Piece of a Frame, with a blind Mortise tor a halp- 

DOVETAILBD TeNON AND A WEDGE. 



. While an isometric drawing of the tenon is very satisfactory, 
an isometric of the mortise would show very poorly in conse- 
quence of its peculiar shape and position. Both teacher and 
pupil should thoroughly understand these drawings. The line 
y will be explained below. If there is 



a:- 



3. The projections of parallel lines which are oblique to the picture plane are 
parallel. 

4. The projections of lines oblique to the picture plane are shorter than the 
lines themselves, i.e., the lines are " foreshortened" in the drawing. 

5. There is a separate picture plane for every " view," or projection. In the 
■case of a " top " or " bottom " view, the picture plane is horizontal. For a " front " 
or "back" view, the plane is vertical. For a "side" view, the picture plane is 
vertical and perpendicular to the front verti(;al plane. 



20 



FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Chap. H. 



the least obscurity in this drawing, let the reader take it to a 
first-class workman and have him make an exact model of the 
piece, full or double size. 

As a third example (and the ingenious teacher will then be 
able to carry them on indefinitely), I give an exercise which 
recently I gave to test the proficiency of a class. I took an 
empty chalk-box without a cover, and made a small hole in one 
of the sides ; then placing the box on the table, I passed a slen- 
der, straight stick over the end, down through this hole to the 

table outside the box, 
and let it rest touching 
the table. The pupils 
were to draw a top view, 
a side view, and an end 
view of the box, with 
consistent views of the 
stick. The drawings 
as required are shown 
in Fig. 6. The pupils 
were to estimate di- 
mensions and to use 
any scale they liked. 
The chief things were 
fullness and consist- 
ency. 
If this is to any extent unfamiliar, the reader should con- 
struct a model and examine it in connection with the views 
in Fig. 6. I assume only a line thickness for the sides of the 
box, and for the stick. In the side view that part of the stick 
between a and b is invisible. 

A little later the pupil will be able to draw an oblique view 
which will give the true length of the rod. 

The intimate connection of all this work with the shop work 
is obvious. The drawing and shop teachers must work in 
harmony, and considerable drawing must be done during shop 
hours, as will be shown later. 

In the drawing class, pencil work supplements black-board 
work. The latter is of necessity free-hand (tho a string is 



"\ 


/j: 




S 

End a^ 




/ 
Side / 

r' 




^^ 


a 
Top 


'f c" 






= 



Fig. 6. Projection Drawings of a Chalk Box 
AND Rod. 



Chap, n.] 



PLANS, ELEVATIONS, SECTIONS. 



21 



an excellent instrument in transferring dimensions from one 
projection to another) ; the paper work mai/ be free-hand, tho 
it is better to have a part of it done with instruments, so as to 
secure habits of precision, and fix high ideals in the memory. 
A finely executed drawing, when fully understood., has many 
of the elements of beauty, and makes a lasting impression upon 
the student. 

It is hardly necessary to add that a class should have repeated 
and alternating exercises in making drawings from objects, and 
objects from drawings. But let the teacher make haste slowly., 
and give no exercise to the class which he has not first done himself. 
Clay may be used in reading drawings, i.e., in translating draw- 
ings into concrete forms. An object drawn this week may be 
reproduced next from the drawings alone. 

Simple objects are generally sufficiently defined by two 
projections, called "plan " and "elevation." A "section " is a 
projection of a part of an object supposed to be cut in two by 
a plane. One part is supposed to be removed, and the observer 
is supposed to be looking perpendicularly to the cutting plane, 
and towards the newly-cut face. It is customary to shade sec- 
tional faces by oblique parallel lines, aiid, if the section shows 
two or more separate 
pieces of material, to 
give the shade lines on 
different pieces differ 
ent directions. For 
example, suppose that 
for the sake of clear- 
ness, 1 wish to show 
the pupil how the three 
pieces shown in Fig. 5 
are put together. I 
make an elevation of 
the finislied joint and 
then draw across it 
the trace of my intersecting plane. The plane, represented by 
the broken and dotted line x y, in Fig. 5, cuts the upper portion 
of the pieces off, splitting the tenon and wedge in two. The 




Fig. 7. Showing Section of the blind half-dovb- 
TAiL Joint, represented in Fig. 5, on p. 19. 



22 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Chap. IL 

lower portion of the joint is then shown in plan, or top- view, in 
Fig. 7. The tenon and wedge are seen in position, tlie latter 
not driven quite " home." ^ 

As soon as the pupils are familiar with making and reading 
drawings, they should be put to instrumental work ; and here, 
as in all other instances throughout the school, we apply a 
simple principle : instruction before constructioti. The use of 
instruments is made the direct object of instruction and study. 
Drawing boards should be of well-seasoned white pine, about 
20" X 30". Stretch Whatman's hot pressed paper the full size 
of the board.2 

The essential drawing instruments (which should be of Ger- 
man silver, of fair quality) are a 30" T-square ; a 45° triangle ; 
a 30°-60° triangle ; a pair of dividers ; a pair of compasses with 
pen, pencil, and needle point ; a drawing pen ; a bow pen ; a 
six-inch box-wood or ivory rule ; a metallic or horn protractor ; 
a set of thumb-tacks (for fastening a cover over the drawing 
paper) ; and a bottle of prepared India ink.^ The cost of these 
instruments with the drawing board is from -16 to |10. A 
cheaper set is hardly worth buying. No good work can be 
expected from poor instruments, and the pupil should not be 
at liberty to charge poor work upon his tools. 

The first two sheets of instrumental drawing should be 
devoted to exercises involving only the use of the instruments. 
Every pupil must learn to draw smooth, uniform lines, light 
and heavy, straight and curved, with long and short radii, 
curves and tangents, reverse curves, etc. There should be 
abundant practice at line-shading, equidistant, uniform lines, 
and at unequal distances; at lines beginning sharply on one 
line and ending sharply on another, either straight or curved. 

1 In my simple definition of a section, I do not exclude a drawing which shows 
several sections made by different planes, as on more complicated drawings. 

2 Soak thoroughly the entire sheet (except a half-inch border all around) in 
dean water, and then, applying good mucilage to the border, paste it down as 
smoothly as possible, and let it dry. 

3 This ink-bottle should in every case be set inclined in a block of wood fixed 
in the front of the student's private drawer (in the drawing stand), which should 
stand partially open while the student is at work. It is a good plan to have a 
" stop " on the drawer so that it cannot be drawn wholly out. Later in the course 
pupils should be shown how to prepare India ink from the stick. 



Ckap, n.] INSTRUMENTAL DRAWING. 23 

Pupils should learn to draw concentric circles without boring 
a big hole at the center. 

In short, the pupils should learn to draw neatly and accu- 
rately whatever lines they attempt, and to keep fingers and 
instruments clean. When this is achieved, they are ready to 
draw from objects. 

The first objects drawn sliould be blocks and joints, similar 
to those shown in Figs. 4-7, which should be carefully measured 
and drawn to scale, with great care as to both quality and 
quantity. The next object should be more difficult, yet not 
too hard, nor involving too many hours of work. 

Two short exercises are better than one long one. Select at 
first such objects as large bolts, nuts, elbows and joints of iron 
pipes, having the real objects at hand. Then later the tail-stock 
or the head-stock of a speed-lathe ; an iron center-rest ; a vise ; 
a jack-plane ; a large stop valve ; a monkey-wrench (large size) ; 
etc. It may be well to give one-half of a division one object, 
and the other half another. 

The first drawings of an object should be free-hand projec- 
tions executed on a scale large enough to show clearly every 
measurable detail of form. When the free-hand drawing has 
been made, the pupil should measure the object with rule and 
calipers, and record these actual dimensions or the correspond- 
ing parts of the free-hand drawing. This free-hand drawing, 
thus " figured," should serve as a " sketch " from which the 
finished instrumental drawing of the object is to be made. 

To make the drawing of the object complete, not only pro- 
jections and sections of it as a whole are to be made, but 
projections of the parts in detail, taken one by one. 

The conventions of shadow-lining may be readily taught in 
connection with such work. 

Meanwhile the class should be practised in single projection, 
with pencil shading, of simple tools, pieces of furniture, and 
miscellaneous objects, from either objects or from other draw- 
ings differently made. One drawing a week, done "out of 
hours," is a moderate request. 

Finally, throughout the year, instruction should be given in 
Lettering, and a large allowance of time should be given to 



24 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Ohap. II 

the practice of letter-making, of a great variety of styles, 
both free-hand and with instruments, with pencil and with 
ink. 

While the above explicit account of our work in drawing 
during the first year may be readily comprehended by a teacher 
already familiar with instrumental work, it is quite impossible 
for one wholly unfamiliar with the use of drawing instruments 
to appreciate either my directions or the work itself. Observe 
that we do not indulge in picture-making, nor in ambitious and 
fruitless attempts to appreciate fine art, not to do artistic work, 
as may older and special students. 

The ideas we teach are fundamental, and the practice we 
require is the stepping-stone to the more difficult and more 
finished work of. the subsequent years. 

Here let me say a word upon the question I have heard ear- 
nestly discussed by drawing teachers : Should pupils be allowed 
to use rulers to assist them in drawing lines which should be 
straight? In the first place, I remark that the question is rela- 
tively/ of small importance, and it has been allowed to cover out 
of sight another question of ten times more consequence, viz. : 
What does the line memi ? The line has, or should have, a great 
deal of meaning, and it should be adequate to express that 
meaning. When a line is fully understood, it becomes trans- 
figured ; it is no longer a mere line, — it is the outline of an 
object, the intersection of two surfaces, the expression of 
an idea or of a fact. Thu is the important thing, which no 
fussing about hard and soft pencils, single-stroke or built-up 
lines, straight edges and curved rulers should be permitted 
to hide. 

Then, secondly, if the eye and the mind are to be cultivated, 
there should be continual reference to drawings which are 
nearly perfect : where straight lines are straight ; where cir- 
cular arcs are circular ; where parallel lines are equidistant ; 
and where three or more lines, which are supposed to meet at a 
point, actually do so meet. For the sake of a power of execu- 
tion by both methods, free-hand and mechanical drawing should 
alternate. It is, however, foolish and illogical to dwell upon 
certain considerations \vhicli only accomplished artists can 



Chap, n.] THE ELEMENTS OF JOINER Y. 25 

appreciate. The}^ are a thousand times above the heads of one's 
pupils, and far removed from the plain work they should do. 

THE WORK IN W^OOD. 

I now turn to the still more unfamiliar details of our shop- 
work. I assume that what I have said about the drawing has 
been read and understood. 

As before stated the shop should be a well-lighted room about 
forty feet square. It should contain twenty-four single (or 
twelve double) benches, with twenty-four "coach-maker's" 
vises, twenty-four wood lathes and twenty-four sets of common 
tools. The engraving gives a view of our shop with the boys 
at their places, taken from a photograph. 

The "common tools" are arranged on racks or screens as 
seen in the engraving. Connected with the benches there are 
seventy-two tool-drawers in which the " individual " tools and 
the students' caps, aprons, blouses, soap and towels, etc., are 
locked. The keys for each division, twenty-four in number, are 
hung on a " key-board " which, when the division is not in the 
shop, is kept in the instructor's closet. 

Besides the above, the teacher should have a lathe, a suit- 
able kit of tools, and a bench so placed as to be in full and 
convenient view of his division when arranged in double row 
around him to witness a practical exercise or hear an illustrated 
lecture. 

Across the ceiling run the main shaft and the counter-shafts 
of the lathes, from which hang the belts and belt-shifters. 
Two grindstones are needed, and these should be kept in 
motion during shop hours. By a clutch or tightener, the 
teacher should be able to stop and start his main shaft at 
will. 

The first part of the year is given to bench work, or the 
Elements of Joinery. 

During his two hours' stay in the shop, each boy has the 
exclusive control of a work bench with a reasonably full set of 
tools. The bench is equipped with an iron vise with three-and- 
one-half-inch jaws. This vise may be set on the side of the 
bench, or on the end away from the space used in planing. 



26 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Ohap. H. 




Chap.n.] 



THE COST OF TOOLS. 



27 



The benches themselves should be very strongly made and vary 
in height from thirty to thirty-four inches. 

I suggest the following as a minimum kit of "common" tools 
to be kept on the rack of the bench : ^ — 



Kit of Common Tools. 



One 20" rip-saw 

" back-saw 

" claw-hammer 

« mallet 

" small steel square 

" six inch try square 

" mai'king gauge 

" T-bevel gauge 

" pair compasses . 

" oil stone 

" oil-can 

*' screw-driver 

" bench brush 



Costing $1.60 


« 


1.00 


(C 


.40 


« 


.25 


« 


.80 


(( 


.25 


(( 


.25 


« 


.25 


(( 


.20 


« 


.50 


<( 


.15 


u 


.20 


a 


.30 



Total 



S6.15 



All the above tools should be supplied at the start, and are 
to be used in common by the three boys who in succession 
occupy the bench during the day. The remaining tools are 
either in the individual sets given the boys, or in the special, 
occasional kit in the teacher's closet. 

An " individual " set, which is to be used by only one boy, 
to be kept in his private lock-drawer when he is not in the 
shop, and is to be issued as needed, includes : — 



One 20" panel cross-cut saw 


Costing 1.80 


" jack plane .... 


" .60 


" smoothing plane . . . 


" .50 


Four chisels: i ', |", f", 1" 


" .90 


Three gouges : ^", i", 1" . 


.70 



1 My estimates of cost in these several lists of tools are based on the prices 
given me by the Simmons Hardware Company of St. Louis, which has furnished 
us with the greater part of our tools. 



28 



FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Ohap. IL 



Two turning gouges : |", |" 
** turning chisels : |", |" 

One parting tool . 
" round-nose tool • 
" pair 5" calipers . 
" two-foot rule 
" oil-stone slip 



Costing 


$.55 




.45 




.40 




.40 




.25 




.15 




.15 



Total 



^5.85 



The speed lathe has about 8" swing and is furnished with : 
a face-plate, a removable screw-center, a spur-center, and a nine- 
inch rest. 

OcCASIOxVAL AND SPECIAL ToOLS. 

These are kept under the personal charge of the instructor, 
to be given out for special work. They are : — 



One large steel square . . . . • Costuig 

" 24" cross-cut saw 

" 24" rip-saw 
Two jointer-planes, 22" long 

" fore-planes, 18" long . 

" bit-braces . 

" sets bits, counter-sinks and screw driver 
One hatchet 
Two nail sets 

Two ^" screw taps and dies for wood 
One draw-shave . 
One spoke-shave 
Two monkey wrenches 
One compass saw 

*' full set of 12 wood-carving tools with handles 

" glue-pot complete with lamp or steam connection 



Total 



$1.25 

1.35 

1.60 

2.20 

1.60 

2.50 

8.20 

.60 

.30 

1.60 

.90 

.40 

1.00 

.35 

475 

1.50 

130.10 



A small supply of shellac, staining material, and varnish 
should always be on hand, as well as sand paper and machinist's 
waste. Other tools and appliances may be added as their use 
is seen to be necessary. 

The cost of the entire outfit of the shop (excluding power) 
for 72 boys may now be given approximately as follows : — . 



Chap. IL] the cost OF SHOP APPLIANCES. 29 



Twenty-five benches @, $15 . 
Twenty-five sets " common" tools @ $6.15 
Seventy-three sets " Individual " tools @ .15.85 
Set of Special and occasional tools . 
Twenty-five coach-maker's vises @ $5.00^ 
Twenty-four speed lathes @ $25. 00 . 
Shafting, pulleys, belts, etc. . . . , 
Grindstones, with attachments . . . , 
Wash trough, dishes, plumbing, etc., say . 



$375.00 

153.75 

427.05 

30.10 

125.00 

600.00 

150.00 

40.00 

80.00 



Total $1,980.90 

If turning and all power attachments are omitted and only 
joinery is taught, the cost is about $1,000. 

If twenty-four sets of special wood-carving tools are added, 
the cost will be increased about $114. 

These tools will if well looked after last many years. It will 
have a wholesome effect if the rule, requiring tools carelessly 
broken or lost to be replaced by the responsible parties, is 
strictly and impartially enforced. 

It thus appears that the special shop outfit costs from $23 to 
$29 per boy. 

The cost of the engine is omitted, as it is counted into the 
expense of the Machine Shop. 

The tools should all be of good quality and the best patterns. 

The Lumber Room is an important adjunct to the wood-work- 
ing shop. The lumber should be brought out in convenient 
shapes (|-inch boards and 2-inch planks, 2nd or 3rd quality; 
square strips of hard wood, two or three inches square ; etc.) and 
piled so as to be readily handled. For the purpose of getting 
out the stock, a band-saw and table is quite necessary. I 
prefer the band-saw to the circular for three reasons : — It is 
safer ; it is less noisy ; it cuts faster. I insert a cut (Fig. 9) of 
the band-saw we use, the price of which is made $100 by the 
makers, Hall & Brown, St. Louis. • 

No wood-planing machine is necessary. Either the lumber 
comes planed or the pupils should plane their own. 

It wastes a great deal of time to have the pupils of a class 
get out their own stock ; it is far better to have the janitor or 
the teacher get it all out beforehand. 



30 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Chap. IL 



The lumber should be bought in time to allow it to thor- 
oughly season before it is used. Some fitting may be done with 
green lumber for the purpose of showing how much it shrinks 
and the necessity of providing for the shrinkage. 

THE METHOD OF SHOP INSTRUCTJON. 

While I am desirous of making a full statement of our 
method of shop-work, it is evident that I cannot furnish that 
real knowledge which the teacher must have. I can however 
greatly assist one who has had some experience with tools and 
who has attempted or is to attempt systematic class-work. 

From the first this is to be borne in mind : tliat the object of 
shop-and-tool instruction is chiefly 
mental discipline. The tools are to 
be intelligently used, and the methods 
of execution adopted are to be chosen 
intelligently. Least of all do we care 
for the concrete product except as it 
bears witness to progress. 

Neither good tools nor established 
methods are what they are from mere 
chance or caprice. They are the 
result of groivth and logical develop- 
ment, and that both the tool and the 
method may be fully understood, both 
are to be fully explained and taught. 
Cases are very rare wherein pupils may be left to find out 
the methods or the right tools for themselves. In general, 
they should he taught the right way from the start, tho preva- 
lent incorrect methods may be pointed out as illustrations of 
*' How not to do it." Clumsy, unhandy, untidy, unintelligent 
habits should not be allowed. 

Above all, the pupil must do his work himself; no other evi- 
dence of his ability to do it should be accepted. Occasionally, 
the teacher may do a stroke of work on a boy's piece, as he 
Avould write a word for him in his copy-book, or draw a line on 
his projection for the sake of showing him "just how," at a time 
when his attention and interest are at a maximum ; but the 




Fig. 9. Band-Saw. 



Chap. IL] TUE mental QUALITY OF SHOP-WORK. 31 

teacher should be cautious of giving aid. He should never 
give the boy any reason to think that the piece is not his own, 
nor to suspect his own honesty in claiming it as such. 

In general, the teacher should execute all typical exercises 
anew for each division, and in its presence, employing just the 
method and order he wishes his pupils to follow. His style and 
his piece should both be of a high order of excellence. 

The first exercises are with the cross-cut saw, try-square, and 
planes. In learning to use the saw, soft lumber — second or 
third quality of white pine — about two inches square should 
be used. In marking for the saw, draw sharp, clean lines with 
knife — don't use scratch awls — on two or three faces and then 
cut just to the lines. In sawing carry the hand lightly and don't 
bend the saw. Two or three cuts may be made to the inch. 

The importance of the saw-cut, may be taught by using a 
piece of |'' stuff say 6" by 20," Avith at least one straight edge 
along which to apply the try-square. 

Draw lines across, every half-inch, stopping them at a gauge- 
line Que inch from the straight edge. Then cut carefully down 
the cross-lines to the gauge-line in such a way that when alter- 
nate pieces are knocked out the spaces will all be the same, and 
as wide as the parts ivhich remain} The accuracy of all this may 
be tested by cutting the whole piece in two, and interlocking 
the projections. The test is severe even for a good workman. 

Similar exercises may be given in sawing obliquely to the 
grain with the saw which is best suited to the tvork, \?i,ymg out 
the work with either the try-square or the T-bevel gauge. See 
Fig. 10 for the position ^ while using the "rip-saw." 

The general and special features of the jack and the smooth- 
ing planes require full exposition and illustration. 

Methods of grinding, oil-stoning (see Fig. 11), and setting 
planes should be given with great precision, and they should 
be well illustrated by drawings.^ 



1 One of the series of exercises given below is based on this principle. 

2 For several of these exquisitely-drawn wood-cuts, I am indebted to the little 
volume, " How to use Wood-working Tools " published by Ginn & Heath in 1881. 

3 There are various kinds of planes which the teacher may use in his lecture 
on planes. The Bailey patent adjustable plane is a great favorite with some, 
while others prefer the old-fashioned woode^ plane. 



32 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Chap. IL 

When lumber is rough and more or less irregular, the plane 
is an indispensable tool, and the workman must know his 
tools. The operation of reducing a rough piece approximately 




Fig. 10. Using the Rip-Saw on a Board. 



2"x2" and a foot long to a smooth ll" square, is not an easy 
one, and most students fail at first. Some succeed only after 
many failures, and some never succeed. The method of holding 
the plane for the first part of a stroke is shown in Fig. 12. The 
left hand keeps the toe of the plane down. 



Chap. II.] 



SAVING A SPOILT PIECE. 



33 



When a boy has spoilt his piece, i.e. taken off so much stock 
that a piece If" square is no longer possible, it is a good plan to 
change the dimension to IJ" and let him try again. Similarly, 
reduce to li", to 1", and even less after further failures. I 
have seen boys, who, like the monkey judge in the fable, inevita- 




FiG. 11. Sharpening the Plane-Iron. 



bly " took off too much from the other end '* till there was 
nothing left. 

The skillful teacher proceeds with system and great caution. 
There should be no hap-hazard work and the class is to be kept 
together. He outlines the steps for squaring up a piece sub- 
stantially as follows : — 

1. Select the cleanest (freest from knots, etc.) and most uni- 
form face and plane it smooth and true. Test the accuracy of 



34 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL, [chap. IL 

the surface by the edge of the try-square. Mark this face thus : 
X, with pencil. 
2. Select the most suitable adjacent face and plane it square 




Fig. 12. The Toe is pressed down with the Left Hand. 

with the first Use the smoothing plane, set fine, and apply the 
try-square frequently. 

3. With the marking gauge (and the pupils should be shown 



Chap. II.] AVOID ACCUMULATED ERRORS. 35 

how to set and how to use this tool on a separate piece) lay off 
If (or less, as the case may be) on each finished face from the 
iinished edge. 

4. In succession, dress the two remaining faces down to the 
gauge lines, testing with the square as often as is necessary. Do 
not scratch a third gauge line for the last face, nor square from 
No. 3. The reason for the caution in the last remark is that 
if face No. 4 is worked from No. 3, it is likely to have an 
*' accumulated " error. 

It should be taken for granted that no real work is exact, 
i.e. we cannot realize the ideal dimensions. What we call 
*' accurate" is only a close approximation. While we should 
mm at absolute accuracy, we must never assume that we have 
reached it ; accordingly, as No. 3 is based upon No. 1 or No. 2, 
it is supposably less accurate than either, and hence ought not 
to serve as a base for No. 4. The teacher should fully illus- 
trate this accumulation of error, which like a story or a snow-ball 
grows as it proceeds. 

For example, let each student be told to cut off twelve 
pieces of wood of a definite length (for future exercises), using 
the first piece as the measure of the second, the second as the 
measure of the third, and so on to the last. Then let him com- 
pare the last with the first, and standing the pieces in order on 
his bench let him see whether they have been growing longer 
or shorter as he proceeded. 

I am aware that to teachers unused to tool work, and to the 
thoughtful logic of mechanical methods, this may appear like 
much ado about trifles. If such there be, let me assure them 
that if they will take a single course of lessons in a " Manual 
Institute " the appearance of these matters will wholly change. 
And again, let me say that when one speaks of trifles, the 
average healthy mind, intent upon one's duties as a home-maker 
and a good citizen, looks with wonder and pity and perhaps 
with contempt upon Browning's " Grammarian " whose life 
work appears to be a lofty devotion to trifles.^ 

1" Re settled Hoti's business —let it be! — 
Properly based Oun — 
Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, 
' Dead from the waist down." 



36 FIRiiT YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Ohap. IL 

The ability to saw to a line and to square up a piece of 
required dimensions prepares the class to undertake mortise- 
and-tenon joints. Great emphasis must be placed upon correct 
methods of laying out the work. It is an excellent plan to let 
making the drawing and laying out the lines which are to 
be worked to on the squared piece constitute an entire exercise. 
The gauge lines should not be extended unnecessarily nor should 
any coarse lines be used. With the try-square use either a 
sharp pencil or a pocket-knife. Do not allow a slovenly method 
of laying out, on the ground that subsequently the lines will 
be planed or sand-papered off, and that when the finished joint 
is planed down, the surfaces must be flush. No such dishonesty 
unscientific tricks should be tolerated in a manual training 
school. 

In making tenons use tJie " rip " and the " back " saws, saw- 
ing accurately to the line and not removing the saw marks. In 
" open " mortise-and-tenon joints, like Figs. 17 and 18, use the 
saws for all but the base of the mortise where the chisel is 
necessary. Preliminary to mortising comes the theory, care 
and use of the chisel, with and without the mallet. 

Each boy now needs a "bench-hook," which is preferably 
made of hard wood and put together with screws. It is made 
of three pieces of wood and four screws. This "hook " is used 
as a shield to the bench in all exercises where the tools are 
likely to strike the support ; and where the vise is not needed. 
It is held as shown in Fig. 13. The screw holes in the cross- 
pieces should be made with the bit to prevent splitting. 

The construction of the hook is seen to cover several impor- 
tant points. 

It is hardly necessary to say that special exercises are neces- 
sary for showing how narrow and wide chisels may be used in 
paring, smoothing, and excavating. In mortising, the aim 
should be square corners and good surfaces even for parts 
entirely hidden in the closed joint. As bits and augers are 
used or may be used to advantage in mortising, their use should 
be taught in preliminary exercises. 

A fair proportion of hard woods — ash, maple, beech, chest- 
nut, walnut, and oak — should always be used in these bench 



Chap, n.] THE THEORY OF TOOLS AND MATERIALS. 



37 



exercises, and a certain number of exercises should be given 
in working obliquely to the grain. 




Fig. 13. Showing the Use of the Bench-Hook. 



The operations of gluing should be well taught. Occasionally 
a joint may be glued, tho as a rule it should be left unfas- 



38 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Chap, U, 

tened so that it may be inspected more thoroughly. In building 
up composite work, use different colors, or aim at effects by 
contrast of grain. 

Here the jointer-planes come in use for the last touches of a 
joint. 

A fore-plane serves the same purpose, though it differs less 
from the short smoothing-plane. 

THE SHOP DRAWINGS. 

The teacher should have a generous blackboard in his shop 
on which to make and sometimes to preserve important draw- 
ings. The drawings should always be made with care, and 
generally they should be of large size. The style of the teach- 
er's work has great influence upon the pupils. 

Every boy should have a blank book for his shoj) drawings, 
which he should leave in his locked drawer at the close of his 
work. Into this book should be copied in succession all the 
working drawings placed by the teacher on the blackboard, or 
on large sheets of paper and hung before the class. 

The drawings should be made with care, of ample size (the 
tendency of boys is to make them too small), and generally 
with the use of a straight edge. It is not strictly necessary 
that they should be made to scale, for the " figured " dimensions 
should always be given in full. No boy should be allowed to 
begin his piece, till his drawing has been examined and approved 
by the teacher. 

WOODWORKING EXERCISES. 

I give below the main features of our exercises. The minor 
features which are always more numerous cannot be shown. 
These latter are connected with the theory of the tools, or are 
preliminary to the regular course. With very young pupils 
they should be far more numerous than with mature students. 
An average of one new exercise in three lessons is enough for 
boys fifteen years old. 

No. 1. Use of jack plane and try-square. To "square 
up " a piece from rough stock. 

No. 2. (Fig. 14.) Use of cross-cut saw. Stock, common 
pine board 14" long, 4" or b" wide. Lay out and saw as 



Chap, n.] SERIES OF WOOD-WORKING EXERCISES. 



39 



shown by full lines. Split out with a chisel the pieces which 
are in part bounded by dotted lines. Cut across the middle 
and then interlock the parts. 




Fig. 14. 

No. 3, {Fig. 15.) Rip and cross-cut sawing. Stock, plain 
board. Lay out and saw to full lines, trying both saws so as to 
determine which is the best for each angle to the grain. Use 
either the vise or the trestle in supporting the piece, in order 
to see which is the more convenient. Examine and criticise 
every cut. 




Fig. 15. 

No. 4. (Fig. 16.) (a) Half - and - half closed 
(h) Half-and-half open joint. (c) Miter joint. 

stock may be any two squared 
up pieces of equal size. Exe- 
cute and hand in a, ^, and c, 
separately. Take notice : In 
giving this and subsequent ex- 
ercises, the teacher should 
" figure " his drawings, and the 
pupils should copy the same 



joint. 

The 




40 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Ohap. H. 

carefully in their books. See directions for making shop draw- 
ings on page 38. 

No, 5. (Fig. 17.) An open mortise-and-tenon joint. 
The stock may be of any convenient size. Saw to the lines 




if possible. Do not brnise or mar the corners. Do not plane 
off the finished work to remove evidence of inaccuracy. 




Fig. 18. 



No. 6. {Fig. 18.) An open, double mortise-and-tenon 
joint. Stock of any convenient size. Observe directions 
already given. Lay out with care, and saw just to the lines. 



Ciap. n.] 



BENCH EXERCISES. 



41 



This is a difficult exercise, and partial failure should not dis- 
courage. One may fail in No. 6, who has succeeded well in 
No. 5. 





Fie. 19. 

No. 7. (Fig. 19.) (1) Single mortise-and-tenon closed 
joint. (2) Double mortise-and-tenon closed joint. 





Fig. 20. 



Execute the joints separately. Cut the single tenon wholly 
with the saws, if possible. Several preliminary exercises may 



42 FIB ST TEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Ohap. H 

be necessary to the cutting of the mortises with clean, sharp 
corners. Do not aim to remove all the gauge marks on the 
finished work. Do not glue or pin the pieces together. 

No. 8. {Fig. 20.) (a) Long and short mortises. (5) 
Sawing out tenons. Execute a first. Then cut to the long 
tenon lines with a rip-saw ; then rip into three pieces, and 
finish the tenons with the back-saw. Do not be discouraged 
if this require several repetitions. Some of the dimensions 
have been omitted as variable in different pieces. The chief 
thing is, that each mortise has its tenon, which runs far through. 




Fig. 21. 



No. 9. {Fig. 21.) A miter joint with an open, double 
mortise-and-tenon. Stock, Ih" by 2" or 3", and of any 
convenient length, using both ends, and not sawing in two till 
the tenons are made. The teacher may use either isometric or 
ordinary orthographic drawings, as may appear best. 

No. 10. {Fig. 22.) A half-dovetailed joint halved 
together. Stock of any convenient size. Cut the mortise 
first, and finish the dovetail of the tenon with a sharp, wide 
chisel, to an exact fit. 

No. 11. {Fig. 23.) A dovetailed joint with a single 
tongue. The nature of the exercise is clearly shown in the 
drawing. Use large stock, so that the dimensions may be dis- 



Chap, n.] 



BENCH EXERCISES. 



43 



tinctly given. Do not plane off the finished joint. Preserve 
sharp corners on the mortise. 




Fig. 22. 




No. 12. (Fig. 24.) An oblique mortise-and-tenon joint 
with a pin. The obliquity shown in the drawing is a little 
less than 30°. Do not attempt to draw the tenon home by the 
pin ; bore the hole through both pieces at once. Leave the pin 



44 FIRST YEAH OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL, [chap. II 

projecting, so that it may be drawn out. Extraordinary care 
should be taken in lavin^ out this exercise. 




Fig. 24. 



No. 13. (Fig. 25.) A half-dovetailed mortise-and-tenon 
joint, with a key. This exercise is sufficiently shown by the 
drawinp-. 




Fig. 25. 



No.- 14. {Fig. 26.) (rt) A beveled corner-piece of a 
frame, with a blind mortise for a half-dovetailed tenon. 
(6) The dovetailed tenon and key for the mortise. 

This is a difficult exercise, and some "fitting" is allowable in 
finishing the tenon and the key. The key should be left long 



Chap. II.] 



BENCH EXERCISES. 



45 



enough to permit unlocking the joint, the in a real example it 
would be cutoff, and the joint would be glued as well as locked. 




Fig. 26. 




Fig. 27. 



No. 15. {FJg. 27.] A half-blind dowel joint. The dowel 
pins may be made of hard wood. The bit-holes should be made 



46 FIE ST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Chap. IL 

in both pieces at once, while the short piece is wholly in the 
vise. The entire joint should be glued. 

No. 16. (Fig. 28.) Triangle. No. 17. (Fig. 29.) Hexagon. 
Frames with miter angles of various sizes. The teacher 




Fig. 28 



should show how to lay out angles of 30° and 60°, using the 
try-square and compass. Do not use very small stock. Nail 




Fig. 29. 



or dowel or screw the joints. No. 17 might be made with open 
mortise-and-tenon joints and pins. 



Chap, n.] 



BENCH EXERCISES. 



47 



No. 18. (Fig. 80.) A rafter joint. Use stock say 3" by 4" 
and about a foot long. The teacher may add a pin running 
down through both pieces, which would represent a bolt with 
head and nut. 




Fig. 30. 

No. 19. {Figs. 31 and 32.) 
A dovetail joint with 
several tongues. This 
exercise requires precision 
and a clear head. The 
work must be laid out very 
systematically, and be exe- 
cuted with patient care. 
There can be no objection 
to gluing the pieces together 




Fig. 31. 




Fig. 32. 



48 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Chap. H. 

when finished. Fig. 32 sliows best the nature of the joint, 
but Fig. 31 gives a drawing to be actually used in laying out 
such work. The pupil will see that Fig. 31 and Fig. 32 do not 
represent precisely the same pieces. 




Fig. 33. 




Fig. 34. 



No. 20. {Figs. 33 and 34.) A dovetail joint witln a miter. 

This is equally hard with the last. In place of a third ortho- 
graphic projection of each piece, I have given a perspective 
view which at once makes it all clear. The finished joint may 
be glued. 



Chap. II.] 



BENCH EXERCISES. 



49 



No, 21. [Fig. 35.) A false double-dovetailed joint. 

This very interesting exercise is difficult from the necessity of 
sawing very obliquely to the grain for the sides of the mortise. 
The exact dimensions of the tenon are either given directly, or 
they may be found on the drawing of the mortise. When well 
executed and snugly put together, the combination appears to 
represent an impossibility. The double-dovetail appearance 
forms a puzzle which never fails to interest. 




No. 22. A bench project. This may be a complete box 
or chest with butts and lock, a table, a model of a roof-truss, a 
step-ladder, or any other article which will not absorb too much 
time, and which shall call into play the processes learned. The 
chest should be made as a box completely closed, and then be 
sawed open. 

The operations of nailing (using different sizes), clinching, 
withdrawing nails, screwing, pinning, wedging, splicing, keying, 
etc., should be taught by appropriate exercises. 



SUGGESTIONS. 

It will be found an excellent plan to give all the boys permis- 
sion occasionally to make what they like, and to carry away the 
products. In such cases each should submit a scale drawing 
(figured) of his proposed article, and should furnish the mate- 
rial for the same. The teacher however should endorse no 
loose plan, nor permit attempts on too complicated work. And 
here let me -caution both teachers and pupils against ambitious 



50 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Chap. H. 

undertakings. There is a very homely, but strikingly appro- 
priate, proverb which may occur to the reader, and which I for- 
bear to quote, but it warns against undertaking more than one 
can execute. Heed its warning. No "extra" or "project" 
should be adopted, which has not been looked through in 
every detail, and for which there is not at command not only 
all the necessary materials, but all the time that may be 
needed. 

For framing, stock not less than two inches square should 
be used, and such a design should be used as will show the dif- 
ference in principle and in construction betAveen struts and 
ties. 

The propriety of using iron ties with washers and nuts 
may very appropriately be pointed out, tho the class is too 
young to appreciate such combinations very fully. 

One of the first difficulties the teacher of wood-work will 
encounter is that of unequal capacity in the execution of work. 
Aside from differences of effort, attention, and application, there 
will be a marked difference in ability. This difference will be 
greatest at the start, so that the teacher may comfort himself 
with the thought that the evil will become less and less as his 
class progresses. 

This is perhaps just the opposite of what the inexperienced 
teacher would expect. The explanation is, that the natural 
aptitudes of the pupils do not vary as widely as their antece- 
dent opportunities for tool-work have varied. If a boy has used 
tools of any kind, be they oars or bats or hoes or axes or knives 
or trowels or rackets, he will take hold handily, tho it is by 
no means certain that in a month he will not be inferior to 
one who at the start was awkwardness itself.^ 

The range of accejDtability in the exercises will for the most 
part meet the difficulty. Suppose the time allowed for an exer- 

1 I have learned to thoroughly distrust the new comer who brings a reputation 
for mechanical skill coupled with dullness at his books. As a rule, such a boy fails 
to show marked ability of any sort. A boy who came to us with a passion for 
machinery — who " could not be kept away from engines," the rattle of cogs, and 
the snapping of belts — never got beyond a sort of morbid, simple curiosity to 
" see the wheels go round!" He developed no ingenuity, nor the ability to do 
good accurate work. His book-work was of a very similar character. 



Chap. II.] KEEPING A CLASS TOGETHER. 51 

cise is two hours. The most rapid and expert need less time, 
and the very slowest are likely to bring in unfinished pieces ; 
but if reasonable effort has been made, the teacher is bound to 
accept the result, and rate it at just what it is worth. No boy 
fit to be in the class can fail to do sixty per cent of the work 
required, if he tries. If he does not try, it is a matter of morals, 
and should be treated as such, not as a mechanical failure. 
With honest effort, the slowest boy keeps up as well in the 
shop, as the slowest boy does in elocution, or penmanshijD, or 
in algebra. For very rapid boys who have time for extra 
work, the teacher should always have in reserve some supple- 
mentary exercises based on those already given which the boys 
should be allowed to execute, retaining the work when finished 
if they desire it. All the regular class products should be 
retained by the teacher for such future uses as the interest of 
the school s^uggests. They will often serve as the stock for 
other exercises. 

When a boy actually spoils a piece, the teacher must decide 
on the spot whether he shall take a new "blank" and start 
anew, or adopt a modified design. 

A difficult exercise may very properly be given twice. If 
the first exercises are duly criticised, and the prevailing failures 
are clearly pointed out to the division as a whole, the second 
attempts will far outweigh the first. If necessary, the teacher 
should re-execute the difficult points with the division looking 
on a second time. 

In the list of exercises already given, I have included a suffi- 
cient number and variety for the school course. I claim for 
them no special excellence. They are tolerably logical, and 
show a decided tendency towards forms approved by best usage. 
No live teacher will follow them servilely nor will he be disposed 
to use precisely the same series twice. ^ 

Much depends on the quality and dimensions of available 
lumber. After a little experience in teaching, it will be easy to 
decide where to introduce modifications. The teacher should 
not hesitate to adopt dimensions which will suit his lumber 

1 One of my teachers has taught wood-work for eight years, and he has never 
failed to introduce slight changes which he regards as improvements. 



52 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Chap. IL 

where mine fail to do so. Where I have given no dimensions, 
it is obvious that the teacher must assume them. In no case 
should the teacher fail to give all necessary dimensions. 

CRITICISING AND MARKING THE SHOP-WORK. 

In my judgment the mark given a piece of work should take 
no account of the personality of the boy beyond a general 
knowledge of the grade of the class. In other words the stand- 
ard should be an absolute one for that grade. By reference to 
the grade, I mean that "perfection " signifies only "reasonable 
perfection," taking into account the' age of the pupils, the 
amount of instruction they have received, the time allowed, and 
the quality of the lumber used. I should expect much more 
from a class of college Freshmen who averaged eighteen years 
of age, than from the youngest class in a manual training school 
who were only fifteen years old. 

On the other hand, in giving a boy a quarterly or half-qUar- 
terly mark in shop-work, I should admit the lad's personality 
to a certain extent. For instance, I would mark him first with- 
out looking at his work ; on his apparent comprehension of the 
exercises, as indicated by his written or oral answers to m}'' 
questions;^ on his drawings; on his care of his tools and 
bench ; on the fidelity with which he followed instructions. 
Then I should consider this personal mark as of equal weight 
with the one derived from an examination of his finished work. 

In marking a piece, say Fig. 17, 1 should take into account : — 

1. The accuracy and finish with which the stock was squared 

up to the prescribed dimensions 20 

2. The style and correctness of the laying out 30 

3. The chai-acter of the sawing 15 

4. The chisel work 15 

5. The care of the finished surfaces (freedom from injury 

from the vise or accidental blows) 10 

6. The time spent -10 

100 



1 Occasional written examinations are very desirable in the interest of correct 
vocabulary, precision of statement, and attention of details. 



Chap. IL] marking SHOP-WORK. 53 

The laying out of complicated work should always be marked 
high. It is very desirable that the students know beforehand 
the system of marking, and just where their own shortcomings 
lie. Cultivate self-criticism by requiring of them that they 
mark their own work according to your analysis, comparing 
their pieces with yours, i.e., supposing that yours is nearly 
perfect, as it always should be. Of course the teacher should 
revise all such preliminary estimates of the young workmen on 
themselves. 

APRONS, CAPS, BLOUSES, OVERALLS, TOWELS, ETC. 

The pupils of a class should have aprons of a uniform style, 
coming well up to the chin, and descending to the knees ; a 
light cap with a stiff visor (to protect the eyes from light and 
from flying chips) ; a towel (which should be changed once a 
week) ; and a cake of soap. All these when not in use should 
be kept in the student's drawer with his edge-tools. Blouses 
and overalls will not be necessary till wood-turning is taken up ; 
they are then necessary to protect one's clothes from the fine 
chips which fly from the lathe. 

The drawer keys used by the members of a division should 
be hung together on a kej^-board bearing the number of that 
division. The three key-boards should be kept by the teacher 
in his private closet, to be brought out in succession as tlie 
divisions appear. The presence of a key on the board after 
the division has been sent to the benches indicates the absence of 
a student. The keys should have tags numbered to correspond 
with the numbers on the drawers. 

Pupils should be warned against dangerous methods of hold- 
ing and using tools. The teacher soon learns what accidents 
are likely to happen, and he should warn accordingly. Under 
careful supervision, shop accidents are very few indeed. 

' Pupils should be warned not to slide the vise jaw unless the 
lever be thrown fully back, thus avoiding excessive wear. 

All one's eclge-tools should be kept in perfect order, and the 
teacher should attend to the saws as often as necessary. 

Every boy should leave his bench perfectly clean, every tool 
in its place, and his private drawer in order. His shop duties 



54 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL, [chap. IL 

end aftei^^washing up, and locking his drawer, with the restora- 
tion of his key to the board, and with taking his place in the 
line for filing out of the room. 

I have never found it necessary or desirable to give unsatis- 
factory students extra hours in the shop. A boy who under 
our regulations either can not, or will not, make fair progress is 
not worth the extra investment involved in extra hours ; in 
either case I should try to get him out of the class. 

While boys are at work in a shop I would allow no whistling 
nor playing nor idling. There is no objection to such conversa- 
tion as may be necessary to the prosecution of their work. The 
essential thing is to keep the boys' minds on their work, and 
to rigidly exclude distracting influences. 

The teacher should generally not be at work at his bench 
while the boys are engaged at theirs, but he should hold himself 
ready to answer a signal for assistance or advice, and to check 
and correct those whom he sees going wrong. The division 
should move on the stroke of a bell, promptly and quietly. 

WOOD-TUKNING. 

I assume that the school is equipped with twenty-four speed- 
lathes driven by an engine. A boy of fourteen years can not 
with profit work long at a foot-lathe, without rest. Motive 
power is now so cheap and easily managed that no considerable 
supply of lathes should be put in without power.^ 

The construction and care of the lathe should be fully ex- 
plained. A picture of our speed-lathe made by Messrs. Hall 
& Brown of St. Louis is shown as Fig. 36. Here the pupil 
learns, perhaps for the first time, the importance of keeping the 
lathe bearings in order and well oiled. The heating of a 
journal is never without cause, and should never be disregarded. 
The monkey-wrenches should be suited to the nuts on the 
lathes. The belt-shifters should be convenient and effective, 
and it should be made a second nature with a boy, to throw 
off the belt (shut off the lathe) at the slightest accident, or at 

1 For several years before the organization of the Manual Training School, the 
University boys used foot-lathes and hand-forges. In wood- work two students 
were put to one lathe, one driving while the other turned. 



Chap, n.] 



MANAGING A SPEED-LATHE. 



55 




li^mm^ 



a slowing up of the main shaft. While a boy may properly 
use his hand to stop his lathe after the belt is off, he should be 
cautioned against getting his fingers or his sleeve under the 
belt. When not actually turning or marking his piece, he 
should stop his lathe. Let him beware getting his sleeve into 
the clutches of the spur-center. Flowing, or very loose, sleeves 
should not be worn. If properly shown, boys soon get the 
knack of shifting the belt to change the speed. 

The stock with which one's wood-turning may begin should 
be about 2" x 2" X 8". After " centering " and placing one 
end on the spur, bring up the tail-stock, clamp it in place, and 
then screw up the center point till it strikes the center point in 
the wood. Force the stick 
firmly upon the spur. 
After withdrawing the tail 
center a trifle, clamp it and 
put a drop of oil on its 
point. Before starting the 
lathe put the tool-rest in 
place, its edge a little 
above the center line of 
the lathe and as near as 
possible without touching 
the wood. Pull the belt 
by hand, and see whether the piece and the rest are in proper 
position. 

A carpenter's gouge is the first tool to be used ; it is always 
to be used in roughing out. Turning tools should be kept 
sharp and free from nicks, and the pupil should early learn that 
he is to cut the wood, not scrape it ; consequently the edge of 
the tool should be well raised almost into tangency with the 
revolving piece, and the tool should be slightly inclined away 
from where the diameter of the piece is larger, so as to avoid 
catching in the grain and splitting the wood ; that is, one 
should work from a larger towards a smaller diameter. In 
roughing-off corners, cut lengths of about a half inch at a 
time, cutting towards an end at first and then towards the last 
cut. The tool is to be held firmly resting on the guide, and as 




Fig. 36. Speed-Lathk. 



56 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Chap. H 

it cuts is to be slid along parallel with itself. On no account 
should the pupil let the tool be knocked from his hand. 

When the piece has been reduced to a cylinder, the tool may 
move along the whole piece without stopping, taking a thin 
uniform cut. If the piece has a cross *grain or knots, the cut 
must be very thin, and the tool should move in the direction 
least likely to catch in the grain. 

As soon as the piece is well roughed down, stoj} the lathe, and 
re-adjust the guide-rest. Never adjust the rest when the lathe is 
in motion} 

It is impossible for me to follow out the full details of the 
use even of the gouge. Two general directions must cover 
the whole ground : — 

1. Cut, not scrape the wood. 

2. Incline the tool, and work towards the end of the grain. 
Cut from the larger towards the smaller diameter, rolling the 
tool on the rest if necessary. 

Before working to dimensions, learn to make every hind of 
surface : cylindrical, conical, conoidal (convex and concave), 
and square-shouldered ; and to combine them at will. Quality 
BEFORE QUANTITY is the order of perception, and it should be 
the order of development throughout the school. 

If much stock is to be taken off, the carpenter's gouge is the 
most serviceable tool. It carries a longer cutting edge, and sub- 
divides the chips better than the turning gouge. Its peculiar 
advantages can be learned only by trial. The turning gouge is 
the tool to be used in corners from either the right or the left. 

The turning chisel is a most effective tool, yielding a very 
smooth surface and enabling one to work to sharp angles and 
square corners, but it is more liable to catch on the grain than 
the gouge. 

The teacher must introduce the several tools gradually, show- 
ing the special uses of each, the accidents that are peculiar to 
each, and how each is ground and oil-stoned. 

1 One of our boys disregarded this rule, and lost a finger-nail thereby. He 
raised the rest with the Angers of the left hand, and then pushed it forward till a 
finger came in contact with the swiftly revolving piece. In au instant the nail 
was gone! 



Chap. II.] THE PRINCIPLES OF U'OOD-TU RMNG. 57 

One of the first things to surprise a learner, if he is using 
hard seasoned wood, will be the easy generation of heat. In 
turning a mallet-head of dry oak, for instance, .the chisel or the 
gouge may become so hot as to lose its temper. Great care 
must be taken in cutting creases for shoulders, or the chisel 
will be temporarily ruined. The creases should be cut a little 
at a time, and the tool should be quickly withdrawn. If, 
unfortunately, the temper is drawn from a portion of the edge, 
the injured part must be ground away. The use of heat 
developed by friction as a means of coloring rings and beads 
•on the work is soon learned. To save his tools, the teacher 
should make " Heat *' the subject of a class-lecture, and he 
should call general attention to every instance where a neglect 
of orders has produced bad results. A tool may be seriously 
injured by frictional heat when cutting soft, dr}' pine. 

I have thus far assumed tliat the grain of the wood is par- 
allel with the axis of the lathe. Blocks in which the grain is at 
right angles to the axis of the lathe are generally driven by 
center screws which are attached to the face-plate which is put 
on after the spur-center is removed; or the blocks is secured 
to the face-plate by short screws. One of these methods is 
employed whenever a piece is to be wholly supported from one 
end, and the tail-stock is either removed or pushed to the end 
of the bed. Great care must be taken to keep the edge-tool 
clear of the center and face-plate screws. 

In turning across the grain, the tool for obvious reasons 
should be carried very nearly parallel with the axis, and the 
tool-rest should be adjusted across the end or face of the piece. 

Interior turning should generally be done by the ■•' round- 
nose " tool, at least as a preliminary tool. In spite of its scraping- 
action, it should be kept well ground to a somewhat shearing 
edge. A large cavity in the end of a ])iece should be " cored 
out ; " i.e., an annular channel should be taken out by the 
round-nose, oidy slightly less in exterior diameter than the re- 
quired cavity, and then the central part or core can be under- 
mined and split out. Experience will soon teach that in turning 
a goblet or a vase, the portion farthest from the support is to be 
finished first. 



58 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Chap. n. 



CHUCKING. 

Pieces like spheres and rings often require turning over their 
entire surface ; hence they must at least during a part of the 
work receive other support than the screws and centers already 
named. It is usual to fit them into a " chuck," which consists 
of a separate piece of wood screwed to the face-plate, and having 
in the center of its face a cavity so fitted to the size of the 
article to be turned that the latter requires a gentle forcing into 
it, with friction sufficient to hold it securely while under the 
turning tool. A little experience will enable one to fit a chuck 
leadily, and to use one surprisingly shallow. Several examples 
of chucks are given in the exercises illustrated below. One 
chuck with a little refitting will often serve several pieces. 

Sometimes a mandrel is used to support and carry a piece 
which has a central hole. A " mandrel " consists of a cylinder 
of wood fitting snugly a hole in the piece to be turned, and 
carrying it with itself as it revolves in the lathe. In replacing 
the mandrel in the lathe after having removed it for any cause» 
be careful to restore it to its e:xact former position. Always 
use soft wood for a mandrel, and bear in mind that a little 
friction is sufficient to carry a piece round. 

By . the use of a monkey-wrench on the shaft of a bit, and 
a small block fitted against the tail-stock spindle, the face of a 
piece mounted in the laihe may be quickly and accurately 
bored ; but the bit should first be passed through a sleeve or 
tube which will allow it to enter only to a certain depth. The 
rapidity with which the boring is done renders this precaution 
necessary. Or, on the other hand, a bit may be mounted in the 
center of a face-plate, and be used for boring holes in a piece 
which rests against the tail-stock. In this case also a sleeve 
around the bit should serve as a " stop " at the limiting 
depth. 

As a rule, delicate work is best executed in hard wood. The 
lumber should always be well seasoned, and when finished arti- 
cles are to be preserved, they should be well varnished. " Built- 
up " pieces of black walnut, and light-colored wood, such as 
maple, beech, ash, chestnut, or oak, alternating in thin strips 



Chap, n.] DRAWINGS FOR WOOD-TURNING. 59 

and firmly glued, serve admirably for ornamental work. The 
contrast of colors and graip'^ Is very effective. 

When a fair quality of workmanship has been attained, the 
teacher may proceed to specify quantity, and require pieces to 
conform to given dimensions as shown in drawings. Tlius far 
in wood-turning, I have assumed only free outlines, which the 
teacher may sufficiently show by free-hand curves on the black- 
board. As soon as dimensions are used, however, the pupils 
must make careful scale and figured drawings in their books. 
As turned objects are symmetrical with respect to a line (the 
axis), their projections (on a plane parallel to the axis) are 
symmetrical also ; hence it is customary to draw but one half, 
unless a section is required, in which case one half of the draw- 
ing shows an exterior projection, and the other half a section 
through the axis. As this method of drawing may be unfamiliar, 
I will insert in the illustrations to the turning exercises a draw- 
ing of a goblet, one half being in projection, and the other half 
in section. See Fig. 53 on p. 65. 

Gum-wood, white and black, is excellent for turning, as it 
splits with great difficulty, but it must be kept perfectly dry. 
Fancy woods for ornamental work are cedar, cherry, rosewood, 
boxwood, and mahogany. Hemlock would make beautiful 
work if free from checks. Dead knots should be carefully 
removed by a hatchet or saw. 

There is great opportunity for economy of material in wood- 
turning. The product of one exercise may be made the basis 
for another. See Figs. 49 and 50, where one piece is made to 
serve as the basis of several distinct exercises. In the end 
we shall have mainl}^ worthless chips and valuable experience. 
As we never have much more left, this should produce no sense 
of disappointment. A few specimens should be kept, however, 
to illustrate the series and to emphasize good work. A finished 
piece tells a plain story to a practised eye, and when the story 
is a good one, it is exceedingly stimulating to the class to see 
that it is duly recognized. 

All that I have elsewhere said (see p. 52) in regard to care 
of tools, bench, marking, etc., applies as well to one kind of 
wood-work as another. The following series of turning exer- 



60 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Chap. II. 

cises will fairly serve to begin with. After a year's experience 
the teacher will need no guide. He will receive abundant 
suggestions from many sources, and will see changes which, for 
the time at least, will appear to be marked improvements. 

EXERCISES IN WOOD-TURNING. 

With one or two exceptions these drawings show but half- 
projections, the lower line being the axis of the piece. The 
drawings have been furnished me by Mr. Charles F. White of 
the St. Louis Manual Training School. They are intended to 
furnish opportunity for learning the use of all the tools, and 
to cultivate a taste for graceful curves and an eye for symmetry. 
They may be executed in soft or hard woods, plain or built-up 
by gluing. 

The first twelve drawings represent })ieces from six to ten 
inches long. Only newly-used tools are mentioned. 

Ko. 1. [Fig. 37.) Plain cylinder. Carpenter's gouge. 




Fig. 37. 

No. 2. (Fig. 38.) Cylinders and cones. Turner's gouge. 




Fig. 38. 



No. 3. (Fig. 89.) Stepped cylinders. Wide chisel. 




Fio. 39. 



Bhap. II.] EXERCISES IN WOOD-rUIiNING. 61 

No. 4. {Fig: 40.) Double-stepped cylinders. 




Fig. 40. 



Ko. 5. (Fig. 41.) Large and small cylinders. 




Fig. 41. 



No. (>. (Fig. 42.) Convex curves. 




Fig. 42. 



No. 7. (Fig. 43.) Beads, cones, and cylinders. 




Fig. 43. 



No. 8. (Fig. 44.) Convex and concave curves. 




Fig. 44. 



62 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Chap. H. 

No, 9. {Fig. 45.) Flowing or reverse curves. 




Fig. 45. 



No. 10. (Fig: 46.) Reverse curves. Small baluster. 




Fig. 46. 

No. 11. (Fig. 47.) A baluster pillar. 

ened into a table-les'. 



This may be length- 




Fi6. 47. 



No. 12. (Fig. 48.) Baluster without base. 




Fig. 48. 



No. 13. (Fig. 49.) Face-plate work. This is turning across 
the grain. Each of the drawings represents a half-projection. 
The screw shows how the block is fastened to the face-plate. 
(a) represents a plain solid cylinder. (5) shows two cylinders, 
a square corner having been turned off. (c) shows that each 
of the sharp corners has been turned away, leaving conical 
bands, (c?) shows that the corners have been turned off, leaving 



Chap, n.] SUCCESSIVE EXERCISES ON ONE PIECE. 



63 



an ogee outline. (e). The outline is modified into a capital 
molding, and a cylindrical cavity is sunk into its face as 
tho to fit the top of a pillar or column. 




No. 14. [Fig. 50.) Chuck work. («) represents a half- 
section of a block on the face-plate screw. The exterior has 
been turned off into three stepped cylinders, and a cylindrical 
opening has been sunk into its face. We must now suppose 
that a two-cylinder opening is wanted in the back, or left-hand 
side. The block must then be taken off, turned round, and 
inserted in a chuck. (5) shows the chuck screwed to the face- 
plate and partially cut out. For the sake of the practice, the 




Fig. 50. 



€huck-cavity may be made to take the form of (6), showing a 
convex outline ; or concave outline as shown in (c), where it 
is a hemispherical cavity ; or (c?), where it has just the form to 
support without injury the first piece (a). When the piece is 
accurately carried by the chuck, the double cylindrical opening 
may be cut out of the original piece, leaving but a skeleton of 
material in the finished piece. This exercise is very interesting, 
and admits of great variation. 



64 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Chap, H, 




Fig. 51. 



No. 15. [Fig. 51.) Ring with octagonal section. This 

figure, like the last one, shows a half-section of the ring. 

(a) shows that the ring, is partly 
formed from the face of a block 
screwed to the face-plate by the 
center screw. Three of the faces 
of the ring are finished, and two 
more, the inner and the outer, are 
accurately turned. Perhaps the 
outer one should be defined by a 
faint line before it is removed 
from the screw, (ft) shows that 
a chuck has been' made to receive it after it is turned rounds 
and that the original back of the block has been cut away, and 
that the ring has been finished. 

No. 16. Napkin ring. This should be shown in half- 
section and in half-projection. It is treated like the ring in. 
Fig. 51 ; that is, it is held by the screw-center till the interior 
and the greater part of the exterior is finished, and then it is. 
turned round, and the finished end is inserted in a chuck. For 
this exercise use close-grained hard wood, and polish, stain, or 
shellac the result. 

No. 17. (Fig- 52.) Sphere. The sphere is shown in projec- 
tion ; the chuck, in section. This is a difficult exercise, and 

should not be undertaken till the 
class has had considerable exjDe- 
rience in chucking. As in No. 14,, 
the chuck may be a A'^aluable exer- 
cise in itself. The sphere may be 
approximately turned between two 
centres. It may then be placed 
in a chuck, as shown in the cut. 
The circle of contact is a little less 
than a great circle. The sphere 
should be moved in the chuck so as to take all possible posi- 
tions, and be tested thoroughly, before it can be considered 
finished. Spheres turned from built-up pieces of light and 
dark woods are very pleasing when well done. 




Fig. 52. 



Chap. II,] 



THE STUDY OF GRACEFUL FORMS. 



65 



JVo. 18. {Fig. 53.) Goblet. This is shown in half-section 
and half-projection. It may be wholly turned from the screw- 
center of the face-plate. The 
parts farthest from the plate 
should be finished first. 
Cedar, mahogany, cherry, 
gum, rose-wood, oak, and 
black walnut are good woods 
for goblets and vases, tho I 
have seen beautiful work of 
this description executed in 
white pine ; cedar splits 
easily, but has a fine color. 

If^o. J 9. A composition 
or design. At this stage 
of his work the pupil has a 
clear idea of what he would 
like to make for a final or 
" show " piece. This " show " 
is not to be a vain parade, 
but the actual combination 
of his exercises into a work 
of both use and beauty. The 
pupil should early learn that 
Use and Beauty should never 
be divorced. Every blossom should be the promise of fruit ; 
so every fruit should be heralded by a beautiful flower. It 
is altogether probable that his turning exercises have opened 
the pupil's eyes to see and analyze forms of grace hitherto 
unnoticed. Handsome furniture, moldings, cornices, pillars, 
rounds, balusters, posts, etc., have been examined with won- 
dering delight. The boy finds so much that pleases him, so 
many graceful combinations, that in his first design he will 
probably load his piece most extravagantly. Nevertheless, give 
him a reasonable caution not to ornament too much, and then 
let him have his will. He will soon see how superior is simple 
grace and fair proportion, and yet how difficult it is to satisfy 
a critical eye. A balustrade, a hat-rack (for fastening on a 




Fig. 53. 



66 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL, [chap. H. 

wall), a small table, a toy bedstead, a spoked wheel, a set of 
chessmen, a nest of thin boxes with covers, — such are some 
of the things which may properly be chosen for the display of 
one's skill. Whatever is taken, require first a figured drawing 
made carefully to large scale. 

AVOOD-CARVIN^G. 

Considerable wood-carving may be done with ordinary bench 
tools, tho fine work should not be attempted with coarse instru- 
ments. The great thing is to learn how to work with the grain, 
and how to hold the tool for grooving or paring. The piece to 
be wrought upon is to, be firmly supported in the vise, and the 
cutting-tool is usually to be driven along by the hand. Occa- 
sionally a light mallet may be used. 

No. 1. A gouge exercise. Fig. 54 shows a variety of work 
upon one block, by means of which one learns to take the grain 
at all angles. The gouge is the main article to be used. All 
surfaces should be left smooth or polished. The block is about 
six inches long. 




Fig. 54. 



No. 2. A gluing and chisel exercise. Fig. 55 shows a 
piece composed of eight strips matched and glued, and after- 
wards dressed with the wide chisel and polished. The drawing 



Chap. II.] A GLUING AND CHISEL EXERCISE. 67 

shows the variety which may be worked into one piece. The 
effect of the gluing is very striking if dark and light colors 
alternate in the shield. 

In any event, wood with clear grain should be used, and the 
surfaces should be polished so as to bring out the beauty of 
the wood. 




Fig. 55, 

There is a great variety of special wood-carving tools, tho in 
school the number need not be large. 

The tools used may vary somewhat ; those selected for the 
class in the St. Louis School are the following. The numbers 
refer to the standard numbers on the imported " London tools." 

WOOD-CARVING TOOLS. 

No. 1. ^" firmer (straight chisel). 

2. I" corner firmer (diagonal chisel). 

3. I" straight gouge (flat). 

5. ^" straight gouge (less flat). 

8. ^" straight gouge (round). 

9. f" straight gouge (round, more curvature). 
11. ^" straight gouge (sharply curved). 

11. ^" straight gouge (sharply curved). 

28. Jg" short bent gouge. 

39. I" parting tool (triangular edge). 



68 FIRST YEAE OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL, [ohap, H. 



The tools used by Mr. House of the Toledo Manual Training- 
School are somewhat different. 

The material may be soft woods, such as gum, elm, poplar^ 
or pine, the first two of which split with great difficulty. The 
later exercises may be in harder wood, such as black walnut, 
mahogany, rosewood, or oak, — the last being preferred for 
high relief: but exercises in high relief should usually be de- 
ferred till a subsequent course in an art school. 

I am indebted to Mr. N. W. House of the Toledo Manual 
Training School for the following series of graded elementary 
exercises with regular wood-carving tools. They have served as 
the basis of our exercises in this direction during the past year. 

The thickness of the wood varies in the different exercises 
from three-eighths to three-quarters of an inch. 

JVo. 3. [Fig. 56.) Grooving across the grain. Use straight 
gouge, I" wide, No. 11. In every exercise first lay out the 
work in pencil. 




Fig. 56. 



No. 4. [Fig. 57.) Grooving with and across the grain. 
Use straight gouge, I" wide, No. 11. Cut, not split, the wood. 
Keep the tool sharp, and work the tool along wholly by hand. 




Fig. 57. 



Chap, n,] 



EXERCISES IN WOOD-CARVING. 



69 



Ko. 5. (Fig. 58.) Circular grooving. Same tool as before. 
Carry the tool as a tangent to the curve. Practice cutting 
riglit-lmnded and left-lianded. 




Fig. 58. 



No. a. (Fig. 59.) Convex panel, witli tracery. Use two 

gouges and the parting-tool. Conduct the exercise in two 
parts : first, produce the convex panel ; and second, the com- 
230und shaded grcjoves which should be drawn on the convex 
surface. 



10--- 




Fig. 59. 



JVo. 7. (Fig. 60.) Engraved panel. The two corners are 
carved. The sweeping grooves are clear cuts of varying depth, 
made by the parting-tool. TJie intervening cuts are made with 
a flat Qfonofe. 




Fig. 60. 



70 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL, [chap. Jlr 

No. 8. (Fig. 61.) Panel with engraved tendril. Use two 

gouges, cutting grooves of varying depth. 




Fig. 61. 

No. 9. (Fig. 62.) Carved square panel. Quadrifolium 
in relief. Use two gouges and a straight chiseh The edges 
of the panel are plain bevels. The edges of the leaves are 
slightly under-cut. The panel is sunk about one-fourth of an 
inch. The center is hemispherical. The ground is roughened 
by a spike having a large number of small projections on its 
end. 




Fig. 62. 



No. 10. (Fig. 63.) Panel with carved vine. The vine is 
in sharp relief. Leave all corners clean and smoothly cut. 




Ctap. II,] EXERCISES IN WOOD-CAEVIJVG. 71 

No. 11. {Fig. 64.) Concave circular piece. The coiner 
designs are engraved ; the central parts carved out to a depth 
of one-qnarter or three-eighths of an inch. The ribs and cir- 
cumferences are cut deeply, while the rosette in the center is in 
relief. The center is convex, rising to a blunt point, with sharp 
shaded grooves running to the apex. 




Fig. 64. 



No. 12. (Fig. 65.) Carved diagonal panel. The corners 
are carved, the triangular borders being beveled, and the 
radiating panels being convex upward. The rhomboidal panel 




Fig. 65. 



is deeply carved with overlapping leaves, sharply under-cut. 
The " corner-firmer " is especially useful in finishing sharp cor- 
ners when under-cut. 

Oiling the portions in relief gives them a rich appearance, and 



72 FIRST YEAR OF MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. [Ohap. n. 

at the same time brings into prominence the poor finish of sur- 
faces. 

The time given to wood-carving is about four weeks. As 
an alternative with carving or engraving wood, I suggest the 
introduction of several exercises in carving plaster-of-Paris 
blocks. The scale of the details should be increased. 

It is possible that the reader who has followed me so far will 
be surprised to find the first year at an end without that useful 
work which he has all the time assumed we should do before 
the 3'ear should close. He feels, perhaps, that all we have done 
thus far has been in the nature oi getting ready to do something. 
Perhaps lie wonders why the boys have not made themselves 
bureaus, desks, and chairs, or supplied their homes with useful 
articles and with pretty pictures. 

As I shall discuss this subject later on quite fully, I must 
refer him to the later chapters. However, I have no objection 
to final pieces, which combine the ' principles and methods con- 
tained in the exercises, and which serve to show the pupils 
themselves the value of what they have got. But to make 
the production of articles the main object, and the learning 
of principles and methods incidental, would be to choose the 
shadow rather than the substance ; to destroy our school by 
converting it into a factory. No, this is a school ; its object is 
education. Doubtless the world will have work for these boys 
to do when they get outside ; let us give them the ijower to do 
it well. 



Ohap. ni.] GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 73 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. 

THE careful reader of the last chapter will read much 
between the lines of this. The same general principles 
are to be followed, and in the details of the work many of the 
methods will be the same. The pupils are a year older ; they 
are considerably larger, for their physical development is going 
on at a maximum rate ; they have made some progress intel- 
lectually and manuall}^ but a good deal more morally, in con- 
fidence and self-assertion. They need firm, kind, sympathetic 
management. The work of the year is quite new, of great 
interest, and sufficiently difficult to yield healthy discipline. 

Of course I assume the full work of the previous year ; 
unless it has been fairly done, the boy should not be in the mid- 
dle class. In deciding the question of promotion, all matters 
should be taken into account ; at the same time, it should be 
admitted that the mathematical and other sequence studies 
afford the chief criterion. Without mathematical success the 
work of the second year cannot be done. It is a mistake to 
insist upon excellence either in the direction of practical 
mechanics, or in memory studies, such as language and history. 

If the student has any brains at all, he is likely to do well 
in something, and a partial failure in a single direction should 
not prevent his going on in the course. Pupils have very dif- 
ferent gifts, and the discovery of these gifts should be followed 
by prompt recognition of them. Instead of trying to force all 
comers into the same Procrustean mold, it is our duty to give 
each full liberty of growth. If a boy fails in the shop but suc- 
ceeds in his Latin, ov vice versa, he ought still to go on, if physi- 
cal strength and fair mathematical power are not wanting. But 



74 THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. [Chap. HI. 

here let me say that almost without exception, mathematical 
and mechanical power go together. If a boy fails in the shop» 
he is quite sure to be weak in arithmetic and algebra ; but it is 
not at all sure, — it is scarcely probable, — that one who is a 
manual failure is weak in language and history and spelling. 
Manual failures seem to arise from a lack of power to appreciate 
precision and logical order. A boy deficient in mechanical 
power rarely asks "why?" One way appears to him about as 
reasonable as another ; he adopts a certain order because some 
one else did, or because he was told to do so. He bows to 
authority. When his work is compared with good work, he 
sees no great difference ; he does not see that an eighth of an 
inch more or less does any harm, or that 80° or 100° is not as 
good as 90°. Hence it is that in our promotions from class to 
class, it is not necessary to lay great stress upon shop-work. 
Every well-balanced boy does passably well in it, and the 
sequence of the work of different grades does not demand great 
proficiency. Besides, as already said, the pupil may never have 
had any shop opportunities before, and it may take some time 
to bring out his innate faculties. Physical maturity (i.e. com- 
mand of one's muscles and motions) comes at very unequal 
ages in different boys. Great size is not maturity ; a six-footer 
is often the personification of physical immaturity. 

For the sake of consistency and simplicity I shall assume that 
the number of the second or middle class has fallen from 
seventy-two to sixty-six, and that it consists of three divisions 
of twenty-two each. As before, three teachers are necessary : 
one exclusively for the shop,^ and two for the drawing and 
book studies. Other things being equal, I would have the 
teacher of physics teach the drawing; for the reason that the 
correct study of physics involves the examination and execution 
of drawings, in connection with the design and construction of 
physical apparatus, and the record of phj^sical experiments. 

The science study for the year is physics. The mathematical 



1 It is better not to divide the shop-work between two teachers, even if both are 
competent; there should be no divided responsibility in the care of the tools, the 
material, and the shop generally. When only one man rules the shop, every 
thing is more likely to be well in hand. 



Chap. III.] THE STUDY OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. 



75 



study is elementary algebra continued through quadratics, and 
a few weeks' work in geometry. 

The language work is, on the one hand, the reading of three 
Books of Csesar and perhaps an oration of Cicero, with contin- 
ued study of the Latin grammar. On the other hand, rhetoric 
with frequent almost daily exercises in English composition one 
term, and history (English) one term. 

In the place of Latin and rhetoric (or history), all take 
modern classics once a week. 

The daily program is as follows : — 

SECOND YEAR PROGRAM. 



Division. 


9—10. 


10-11. 


11—13. 


12—1. 


1-2. 


2-3. 


3-4. 


I. 


Shopwork. 


Physics. 


Latin. 


to 

CO 

<v 


Drawing. 


Mathe- 
matics. 


II. 


Physics. 


Algebra, 


Shopwork. 


English. 


Drawing. 


III. 


Algebra. 


Drawing. 


English 

or 
Latin. 


Physics. 


Shopwork. 



The recitations should occupy forty or fifty minutes each ; 
the drawing, a full hour ; the shop, two hours. 

I assume that one division is wholly Latin, another wholly 
English ; the third should be wholly one or the other, or a 
fourth teacher must step in to take a subdivision of the class. 

If tlie physical laboratory will admit more than twenty-two 
pupils in a division, there may be between eleven and one 
o'clock a special re-arrangement of the first and third divisions, 
which will admit of a few more or a few less than twenty-two 
in the Latin division. 

All the mechanical details of English composition should be 
thoroughly mastered this year, even for the Latins, the litera- 
ture hour being used for that purpose as far as necessary. 
Teachers must never forget that English composition like every 
thing else in and out of school is not learned by the continued 
practice of faulty methods and an endless repetition of errors, 



76 THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. [Chap. III. 

not even if one's results are iinfailinglj pronounced wrong, and 
so marked. One learns a correct method only by practising a 
correct method, under dictation if necessary. Every error 
should be fully and clearly corrected by the pupil himself. 

The teacher should always invent a new exercise (and this 
remark applies to English composition, to shop-work, to math- 
ematics and to Latin alike), in which the [)upil may have an 
opportunity to avoid certain specified old errors, and follow the 
best usage. Don't try to " catch " a boy when he is unaware, by 
giving him a chance to repeat an old error; but lead him con- 
sciously to correct usage. 

The persistence of error is something remarkable. I have 
known a workman follow a wrong method all his life, tho 
strongly suspecting that it was wrong. I know intelligent 
people by scores Avho have standard errors of speech which they 
will never live to correct. I have known a poor cook remain 
a poor cook for years, tho daily practising her art (?). One hour 
of correct doing, under the eye and direction of a teacher, is 
worth more than months of mere criticism, and crude attempts 
to find the Correct Way by the Broad Road of Error. 

Some teachers will never tell a pupil the plain, simple truth 
about an article, or method, or process (which may after all be 
largely a matter of conventionality) until he has badgered his 
brains in trying to invent it or to tJiink it out, or has exhausted 
his patience in futile " guessing." Some teachers even empha- 
size wrong Ava} s more than right ones. Such teachers of How- 
Not-To-Do-It should be muzzled, or at least put under bonds not 
to " keep school " any more. 

TEACHING PHYSICS. 
I cannot forbear a few words about the correct teaching of 
physics. It is only in a manual training school that the method 
which appears to be the only correct one can be advantageously 
followed. Nowhere else are pupils so ready to devise, con- 
struct, interpret, explain, and use physical apparatus. Studying 
physics without handling and using apparatus is like eating a 
meal of cook-books. It doesn't nourish ; it sounds well, but 
there is no real knowledge in it. Concepts which for the most 



Chap. Ill] METHODS OF TEACHING PHYSICS. 77 

part ought to be primitive, first-hand, are only second-hand, or 
third-hand, or mere speculation. Until one gets a certain amount 
of mental stock on hand in the shape of exact, experimental 
knowledge of certain things, properties, forces, processes, and 
relationships (which are very imperfectly expressed by certain 
more or less technical terms), he cannot appreciate properly 
verbal accounts of the experiments and conclusions of others. 
The drawing of a piece of apparatus is far inferior to the appa- 
ratus itself, at least to elementary students. 

In the St. Louis Manual Training School, the study of physics 
is becoming more and more a matter of personal observation 
and personal experiment on the part of the individual pupils.^ 

SECOND YEAR DRAWING. 

. The drawing of the Second Year consists of several new 
features, notably : projections of intersecting or truncated geo- 
metrical bodies (cylinders, pyramids, cones, and prisms) ; the 
development of surfaces ; brush-tinting ; mosaics and tracery ; 
isometric drawing ; detail drawing, and drawings for patterns; 
graining and ornamental lettering ; and some study of historical 
forms in architecture. 

I do not deem it necessary to go into a full account of this 
work. The competent teacher needs no analysis of it ; and the 
incompetent teacher will probably let it alone. I desire, how- 
ever, to warn against undertaking too much. The groups of 
blocks, for instance, may be purely ideal, and they can easily be 
made very difficult. My advice is to leave complicated work to 
classes in descriptive geometr}^ proper. 

The work should all be done in pencil and then in ink on 

1 Under the guidance of Mr. C. C. Swofford, who last year conducted four divis- 
ions of physics. At the close of the year there was a remarkable display of quite 
elegant and perfectly serviceable apparatus, constructed by the class, in most 
cases from original designs. The apparatus was explained by the makers and 
used by them before a large audience. 

It is hardly necessary to add that Mr. Swofford could not have succeeded tlius 
with a class of boys who had had no training in the use of tools, and who could 
neitlier makejior read working drawings. 

Our physical laboratory contains an engine lathe, a speed lathe, a hand planer, 
a long bench, two vises, and wood-working and iron-working tools. A small 
upright engine, built by a third-year class, drives the lathes and a dynamo. 



78 THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. [Ohap. HI. 

stretched paper, with great accuracy and good lining. I add 
a few of the exercises purely geometrical, given for the sake of 
cultivating the geometric imagination. 

1. Triangular prism leayiing against a cube. Find three pro- 
jections. Dimensions of solids should be given. 

2. Hexagonal prism leaning against the base of a quadrangular 
pyramid widch rests on a face. 

3. Circular cylinder leaning against a cube. 

4. Prism lying on the top of a cyliiider ivhile a pyramid leans 
against it. 

Though it is not necessary to follow the exact dimensions of 
wooden or plaster models, it is very desirable that real models 
be used to illustrate not only the nature of the bodies, but the 
nature of the groups to be drawn. 

In order to get three accurate projections with proper regard 
to visible and invisible lines, some purely " construction " work 
must be done -, it is well if these latter are inked in red. 

For the benefit of interested readers who are not draughtsmen, 
I will give the specifications and drawings of the second of the 
above. 

Proble:m: — To find the orthograjDhic projections of a hexagonal 
prism leaning against the base of a quadrangular 2)yramid., ivhichis 
lying on a horizontal plane. 

Solution : — Let the pyramid have a base 2" square. (Exe- 
cute the drawing full size.) Let it be so placed that the side 
jDrojection (elevation) of the base shall be a single straight line 
(/ c' Fig. 66). (This should be illustrated by the model.) Let 
the altitude or center line of the pyramid be "2^". Imagine this 
line drawn perpendicular to the base from its center. Its pro- 
jection on the side plane will be 2^" long, and will at one end 
bisect the projection of the base at right angles, while the other 
end will touch the ground line {Gr L). There are several ways 
of finding the correct position of the side projection of the pyra- 
mid ; perhaps the pupil had best draw it in pencil in its erect 
position, and then turn it over. In the figure it is drawn with 
dotted lines in an inverted position, and then turned down. 

The top view (plan) of the pyramid is now readily drawn. 



€hap. m.] 



ORTHOGRAPHIC PROJECTIONS. 



79 



The base \& s c d h and the apex is at v. It will be noted that 
two of the edges s v and h v are invisible to an eye directly 
above the object. 

Thus far I have taken no account of the prism, which will of 
course hide a part of the pyramid, in some or all of the views. 
It is therefore best even in pencil to draw the lines faint and 
broken. Now not to make the problem too hard, take the prism 
so that it has a line contact with the horizontal plane on which 
they both rest. (Illustrate this by models.) One line (/ p') 
may now be assumed on the side plane. Suppose the base to 




Fig. 6t). 



be a regular hexagon whose side is |", while the edges are 3'^ 
long. Assume the position of the lowest side of the base, and 
draw the base as tho the prism stood erect. (See dotted 
base full size.) In this position, its side projection is in G L. 
Next revolve it up to its required position. (This operation is 
shown by the circular arc oc', x''). The entire side projection 
may now be correctly drawn, / h' x' a' etc. There are no 
invisible lines which are not covered by visible ones. The jplan 
or top view of the prism may now be drawn, by means of 
perpendicular and parallel lines. It is easy to see which lines in 
the plan are to be drawn full, representing visible lines, and 
which broken. The reason why the horizontal projections of 



80 THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. - [Ohap. IIL 

the long edges are parallel to G L will be readily seen from the 
models in front of a side plane. 

A third, or end projection, may be drawn, not because it is. 
necessary to full representation, but for the mental exercise. 

It may be very instructive for the pupil to see that a projec- 
tion may readily be drawn on any vei'tical plane. For instance, 
suppose one looks at the group obliquely, but still horizontally,, 
from the right front, in the direction of the large arrow. The 
projection is shown beyond the line P Q. The heights of the 
points above P Q are the same as the distances of the same 
points in the side projection from Ci L. In this view I have 
omitted some invisible lines, and have put double accents on 
the letters. 

The next regular sheet should contain truncated solids and 
their developments. For the first exercise it may be well to 
devolop the entire surface of a regular solid. In the second 
show a prism cut by a plane. Its lateral surface below the 
catting plane is to be developed, or rolled out., and the full size 
of the inclined section is to be shown. The drawing is easier 
than the following, which shows a truncated irregular pyramid 
and its development. 

Problem : — To cut an irregular pyramid hy a plane., to find the 
true size of the section., and to develop the surface of the truncated 
pyramid. 

Solution : — Fig. 67 shows the full operation, which should 
be executed on a scale about three times as large, and with all 
possible accuracy. The central part of the drawing shows the 
plan and elevation of the pyramid, the vertex being 0, 0', and 
the base 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The intersecting plane cuts the edges in the 
points 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. The points 10 and 10' are of course in 
the same perpendicular to 5', 2', and so for the other points. To 
get the full size of the section I draw through 1 in the base a 
broken and dotted line parallel to the ground line ; and at any 
convenient distance from the elevation a second broken and 
dotted line parallel to the cutting plane 7', 10'. From the 
points in the plan 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, I draw perpendiculars to the 
new line through 1. These perpendiculars measure the hori- 



Chap, m.] THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PYRAMID. 



81 



zontal distances of the points from a vertical plane through 1. 
Through 7', 8', 6', 9', 10', draw perpendiculars to and heyo7id 
the parallel line, and make the portions beyond the line just as 
long as the corresponding distances last referred to in the plan. 
You will thus determine the points 7, 8, 9, 10, 6, and by connect- 
ing them you will have the full size of the section^ shown at (a). 
In order to develop the lateral surface, we must find the true 
length of the edges of the pyramid, both the parts cut off, and 
the full length. This is done by means of the perpendicular 
and inclined lines on the left near (^). The lines are put off by 




Fig. 67. 



themselves to avoid confusion. The perpendicular measures 
the altitude of the entire pyramid. The inclined lines 
represent the edges of the pyramid, which are supposed to be 
swung round the altitude line till they are parallel to the side 
plane. Thus the distance from V to the foot of the perpendic- 
ular is equal to 1 in the plan ; and 0" V gives the full le^igth 
of the edge 1, 0' 1'. From 6' a line is brought along by the 
T-square to 6", and then we have the distance 6" 1", as the 
true length of the edge between the point 6 and the point 1. 
Similarly all the true lengths are found. 

At (c) we have the development of the surface supposed to 



82 THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. [Chap. m. 

be cut open along the edge 0, 10, 5. It is constructed thus: 
Draw 5, Fig. (c) equal to 0" 5", Fig. (6), and make 10 
equal to 0" 10^'. Next determine the position of 1, Fig. (c), by 
making 1, and 5 1, respectively equal to 0" 1" in Fig. (5), and 
5 1, in the base of the pyramid. ^ The point 6, Fig. (c), may 
then be found by making 6 equal to 0" 6", Fig. (6), or 10 6 
equal to 10 6, Fig. (a). The two methods should check. We 
have now in 5, 1, 6, 10, Fig. (c), the full size of the four-sided 
face shown in the plan b}^ the same figures. 

Similarly the rest of the development can be found in less time 
than it takes to write out the explanation. The rationale of the 
methods generally comes with a thorough mastery of them. 
The teacher should see to it that the reasons do appear. When 
this solution is fully understood, the pupil may attack other 
problems with confidence. A cylinder may now be cut by a 
plane, and developed. 

Next follows a cone similarly truncated. The cylinder is 
treated as though it were a prism of a large number of sides ; 
and the cone is treated as if a pyramid. When the sides of the 
base are taken as small as a quarter of an inch (to a radius of 
one inch), the difference between the circumference of the 
circle and that of the inscribed polygon is quite inappreciable : 
about one-sixtieth of an inch. 

It is not difficult to greatly extend these exercises, giving the 
intersections of one solid with another: but I doubt its utility 
beyond the intersections of cylinders and of prisms. Two 
examples of the former and one of the latter are all I would 
give before the systematic study of descriptive geometry, which 
offers the only proper basis for the study of intersections of 
surfaces, shades and shadows, and perspective. 

Isometric drawing should be illustrated by two sheets, the 
first containing the projections of geometrical solids and the 
details of wood-work, partly from models, and partly from work- 
ing drawings. The second sheet should contain the isometric 
projections of a piece of apparatus, or set of shelves, or similar 
plane-faced work, with isometrics of its details. Details are 

1 The teacher should explain and illustrate this bit of geometrical drawing just 
as it is needed. 



Chap, m.] DETAILS OF DRAWING EXERCISES. 83 

usually drawn to a larger scale, that the essential features of 
joints, etc., may be clearly shown. The first isometric drawing 
should be a cube with an inscribed circle on each face. Give 
special attention to the method of getting points in the ellipses 
which result from the projection of these circles, so that the 
pupils may in futnre get the projections of such circles without 
aid. 

Flat-tinting, or " washing-in " with dilute India-ink and a' 
brush, should be practised till the pupil can get an even tint of 
any required depth of color. The sheet should in part repre- 
sent mere mosaics ; and in part a succession of ribs, blocks, and 
depressions, square or cylindrical, receiving shadows, and bear- 
ing different grades of shade. 

A most excellent exercise in pure lining is to draw in pencil 
a sharp circumference of about three inches radius, using a horn 
center so as not to prick the paper. Divide it into any conven- 
ient even number of equal parts from sixteen to twenty-four, and 
then draw smooth, even, jet-black, straight lines from every point 
of division to every other point of division. Finally, rub out 
the original pencil line. The results if well done will be very 
satisfactory. Tho a purely rectilinear figure, it will suggest a 
large number of circles. I hope every teacher of instrumental 
drawing will give this exercise. 

In laying out architectural work the teacher must not be too 
ambitious. College or engineering students have often found it 
necessary to study the drawing as outlined above, and they 
have often shown no more finish than these boys now show ; 
and yet it is manifestly unwise to undertake the same grade of 
architectural work with these as would be done with them. 
Maturity and mathematics are great helps in abstract draw- 
ing. 

Rest content with a study of moldings, of balusters, of pedi- 
ments, of brick arches and skew-backs, of the main features of 
columns, capitals and cornices, and of girders and joice (in 
isometric). Two sheets of such work with elaborate borders 
will suffice. 

As to free-hand work, it should follow, or rather accompany, 
instrumental work. As soon as the principles involved are 



84 THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. [Ohap. III. 

understood and illustrated by accurate instrumental work, they 
should be illustrated by free-hand work. Clearness, boldness, 
and precision should be aimed at, and the work should be 
done on a large scale. Brown paper may be used, and con- 
siderable erasing allowed. The principles involved in free- 
hand work, are the same as in instrumental. In drawing 
from objects the original sketches should always be largely 
free-hand. 

Some ornamental lettering, and study of borders, will close 
the drawing for the second year. 

THE SHOP-WORK. 

The shop-work of the second year is mainly in an entirely new 
field. Nothing could be more unlike than the forge and the 
bench, the anvil and the vise, fire and the cutting edges, iron 
and wood. In the forging shop, to which we now go, personal 
characteristics are more prominent than in the former shop. 
Every timig seems to depend on the student. No machine or 
tool does his work for him. His eyes, his hands, and his judg- 
ment are chiefly responsible for the results. It is for this reason 
that a bright boy soon discovers a wonderful relish for the work 
in spite of its occasional call for severe exercise, its abundant 
dirt, and its fervent heat. 

The shop has twenty-two forges, each supplied with a power 
blast, a tank of water, an anvil, and a kit of forge and anvil 
tools. The forges are of a portable or special make placed in 
pairs back to back, with a common hood and up-take, and a nine- 
inch pipe leading to the main exhaust pipe which connects 
directly with the large fan.^ Each up-take has a tight-fitting 
damper, which should be closed when the fires are out ; a single 
fire, or even several fires, may then be used without starting 
the fan, if the chimney has a fair draft. With the fan and all the 
fires in full blast, there should be no serious difficulty from smoke 
and gas in the shop. The hood shuts in three sides of the forge 
for the double purpose of confining the smoke and of keeping 

1 In the St. Louis School tlierc is a Sturtevant fan with a delivery of 18" by 23" 
which was presented to the school by the inventor. It carries off the smoke most 
efficiently. 



Chap. III.] OUTFIT OF THE FORGING SHOP. 85 

the radiant heat from adjacent workmen. Above the tweer 
(tuyere) is a circular fire-pot six inches in diameter, admitting 
of a fire large enough for all the uses of the shop. 

One forge rather larger than the rest, with larger fittings, 
serves for heavier occasional work. The anvils stand on oak 
blocks sunk in the clay floor and (with one exception) weigh 
about eighty-four pounds. The water tanks of cast iron hang 
by forged hooks upon the edges of the forge. The kit of tools 
comprises a machinist hammer weighing (with handle) one 
pound and three quarters; four pairs of tongs: ^ , f", .J" and 
f"; a poker, a rake, a shovel, a sprinkler, an anvil, a chisel 
(" hardy "), a steel square, and one sledge to two forges. One 
leather apron belongs to each forge. 

Fig. 68 is made from a photograph of the St. Louis forging 
shop, and shows many of the details of the shop. 

The cost of a forge and one set of tools is about $25.00, not 
including blast and fan. The cost for these two things is too 
dependent upon circumstances to be estimated. 

The operations of the forging shop involve a personal knowl- 
edge of three things : — 

1. How to heat the piece to be operated upon ; 

2. How to hold it ; and 

3. How to strike it. 

In accordance with strict educational methods we analyze the 
operations, give opportunity to acquire the three kinds of 
knowledge, and teach the three arts separately. 

I. How TO Heat. The management of the fire so as to 
secure any desired degree of heat ; to have one point of the 
piece hot and all others cool ; to keep the piece under treatment 
clean ; to save fuel ; and to know just the degree of heat neces- 
sary for each operation — these are things slowly learned, but 
they must be learned well. 

II. How TO Hold. As a rule this is the work of the left 
hand. It involves an intimate acquaintance with hammer and 
anvil ; a knowledge of the behavior of metals at different tem- 
peratures under the hammer ; and a knowledge of what can, and 
what cannot, be done with metals through the agency of heat 
and pressure. 



86 



THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. 



[Ciiap. in, 




2 ja 



Chap, III.] THE OPERATIONS OF THE FORGE. 87 

III. How TO Strike. Here the right hand and arm, wrist^ 
elbow, and shoulder, come into full play.^ Strength and relia- 
bility are essential to force and accuracy. The pupil must 
learn how to grasp, how to swing, and how to deliver blows. 
He must know the particular tools to be used ; when to strike 
heavy, when light ; when rapidly, when deliberately. 

Precepts, examples, and trials are all necessary, and the 
teacher must, to a certain extent, teach these arts separately. 

The worker at the anvil has, so far as the matter of forging 
is concerned, but a few processes to learn, though the number 
of ways and degrees in which they may be combined in prac- 
tical work may be countless. With special combinations the 
manual training school has little to do ; it is chiefly concerned 
with the fundamental principles. 

The processes may be classed as follows : — 

1. Drawing, or making a piece longer.^ The effect of 
blows on the sides of a piece, thereby forcing out the ends, 
is similar to that of tension applied at the ends. 

2. Upsetting, or making a piece shorter by blows upon the 
ends. This is just the reverse of " drawing." 

3. Shaping, or changing the figure of a cross-section without 
changing its area. This operation combines Nos. 1 and 2. 

4. Bending, using various shapes, — round, square, and flat ; 
the last is to be bent in two ways. This operation involves 
stretching and compressing, and according to the quality of 
the metal requires a special heat. In all these exercises the 
student must learn to work rapidly when the iron is hot, and 
to stop the moment the temperature has fallen too far. 

5. Punching, cutting, and breaking. These operations 
depend on the nature of the material and on the degree of 
heat. 

6. Welding, uniting two pieces by forcing the fibers to inter- 
mingle at a high temperature. This requires a nice adjustment 

1 I am quite in favor of doing justice to the left hand and arm, and would 
encourage pupils to use either hand, but I would not delay the progress of the 
class on that account. 

2 The teacher who has studied strength and elasticity of materials will under- 
stand that heat lowers the elastic limit, and makes it comparatively easy to 
lengthen or shorten the fibers of metals in "permanent set " without injury. 



88 THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. [Ohap. HL 

of the heat in the two parts at the same instant, and their super- 
position with clean surfaces. Generally two people are neces- 
sary in making a weld, and each may use his hammer. The 
welding of two pieces should be preceded by the welding of the 
parts of a bent piece, where no helper is needed. 

7. Hardening and tempering steel. There are endless 
varieties of temper for different grades of steel. A great deal 
may be learned from lectures and a judicious series of exercises. 

We have found it exceedingly profitable to teach the two 
arts, of holding and striking, by means of a preliminary exercise 
in soft metal, generally lead, which is wrought cold. Just how 
to hold and how to strike depends upon the form to be pro- 
duced, and it is of the utmost importance that that form be 
clearly in the mind of the young artist. 

The teacher first gives drawings of the required piece, with 
all necessary dimensions. He next names the tools to be used 
and the order in which the steps are to be taken. (This order 
is much more important than it was in wood-work the first 
year.) He then takes the steps himself^ calling attention at the 
same time to his manner of holding and of striking. His piece 
is compared with the drawings and should fairly embody the 
required dimensions. The teacher should ahvays do his best 
work in the presence of the class. 

One of the anvils should be so placed that one or two semi- 
circles of temporary seats may be ranged around, so that each 
pupil may see and hear all that is done and said. 

In following the teacher's lead, the pupils have a clearly 
marked course before them, but it will be found that much 
deliberation will still be necessary. A hasty blow, or a wrong 
motion to the piece, results in malformation or serious injury. 
Hence the pupil must think the matter out., and strike only when 
his mind has correctly analyzed the problem, and foreseen the 
results. 

This shows the advantage of cold lead over hot iron : with 
the one, the mind may take time to reason out the how and the 
where ; with the other, he must " strike while the iron is hot," 
though with fatal indirection. If one stops to think, the iron 
cools, and then it breaks from being worked at a low tempera- 



Chap. Ill] ENERGY VS. MOMENTUM IN A HAMMER. 



89 



ture ; or it must be reheated, at the expense of time, and a surface 
layer of material which may leave the piece scant. We have 
found that the use of lead has been economical in three ways : 
It saves time in the end ; it saves material (the lead is melted 
over into new bars with little loss) ; and it secures more accurate 
workmanship, inasmuch as the exact form is better under- 
stood. 

It frequently happens even in light work that a heavy hammer 
must be used. A heavy hammer moving slowly is a very differ- 
ent thing from a light hammer moving rapidly, even when they 
have the same momentum ; one 
may tear the fiber while the 
other does not. This may be 
admirably illustrated by upset- 
ting the hot end of a rod which 
is held in the hand. With a 
light hammer and a quick blow, 
the upset is all at the extreme 
■end ; with a heavier hammer and 
a slower blow, the upset is dis- 
tributed for some distance ; with 
a very heavy hammer and the 
same momentum, nothing may be accomplished. In a gen- 
eral way, our young workman must test this point and know 
when to call the aid of another student, either to swing the 
sledge or to hold while he wields the sledge himself. Two or 
oven three strikers on one piece may at times work to advan- 
tage. 

The following series of exercises has been adopted as serving 
the double purpose of bringing out the several processes, and 
of acquainting the pupils with the more usual standard forms. 
It should be borne in mind that many are to be wrought in lead 
to exact dimensions, and then in iron or steel (sometimes both) 
as closely as possible. The dimensions of the " stock," or raw 
material furnished the pupils, are given in each case. 

No. 1. {Fi^. 69.) Bent ring. The object is to get uniform 
ourvature. The stock is |" round rod of a length equal to the 
circumference of a circle whose diameter is 2f". 




Fig. 



90 THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. [Chap. IIL 

No. 2. (Fig. 70.) Figure eight. Stock, |'' round rod. This, 
is somewhat more difficult than the last. 

No. 3. (Fig. 71.) Ring handle. Stock, |" round rod. These 
first exercises give practice in bending, and in realizing the 
length of bends. Tho very simple on paper, an attempt to 
produce them is certain to develop many new ideas. 




E 


1 



Fig. 70. Fig. 71. 

No. 4. (Fig. 72.) Square piece with taper. Stocky 
I" round. The finished No. 3 is straightened and used for this 
exercise. The body is reduced to a square prism, and the end 
to a pyramid. This is the first step in drawing out. The exer- 
cise should first be executed in lead, beginning with a short 
rectano-nlar bar. 




Fig. 72. 



No. 5. [Fig. 73.) Hasp and staple. The stock for this; 
hasp is exercise No. 4. One end is reduced to a cylinder and 
bent into the circular head. The other end is rounded, drawn 
out, and bent. Tlie body of the shaft is then heated ver3r 



Chap. III.] 



EXERCISES IN FORGING. 



91 



hot, the ends cooled by dipping in water, and then grasped 
by two pairs of tongs and twisted 180°. For the staple use 
i" round. 




Fig. 73. 



JVo. (>. (Fig. 74.) Flat bend. Stock, 1" X ¥' bar, 5|" long. 
The exterior is to be finished sharp and square, while the interior 
may be left rounded with a small fillet. The material is to be 
left sound. The exercise should first be executed in lead. 




Fig. 7-1. 



No, 7' [Fig. 75.) Edge bend. The stock is shown in the 
drawing. The inside corner is very hard to form and keep the 
material sound. One great object of this exercise is to teach 
the student the necessity of avoiding this operation when 
strength is to be preserved. It is much easier to do if the 
outer angle is left rounded ; and, strange as it may appear, it 
will be stronger thus, tho deficient in breadth, than when 



92 



THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. 



[Chap, m. 



reduced to the exact shape of the drawing, — in consequence of 
the inevitable weakness of the inside corner. The exercise 
should be executed first in lead. 

]Vo. 8. (Fig. 76.) Upset oval. Stock, h" round, 5" long. 

The first step is to increase the 
size of the piece in the center 
by "upsetting." Heat the 
center, cool the ends quickly, 
place the piece vertically on 
the anvil, and strike heavy, 
square blows on the end. 
The diameter at the center 
should be increased to about 
I". The tapering ends re- 
quire great delicacy of ham- 
mering because one cannot 
use the swages. Before 
i:)unching the small hole, the student should practise at punch- 
ing a piece of plate or bar. 




Fig. 75 




Fig. 76. 



No. 9. (Fig.77.) Upset square. Stock, |" round, 6i" long. 
This exercise is an extension of the last, the amount of 
upsetting being greater. The production of straight cylinders, 
true with the axis of the square central part, is difficult. A 
preliminary exercise in lead is very instructive. Instead of one 
of the cylinders, it may be well to form a rectangular piece with 
an oblong section. The swage would then be used for one end, 
the flatter for the other. 



Chap, m.] 



EXERCISES IN FORGING. 



93 



No. 10. {Fig. 78.) Fuller piece. Stock, 1" x 2" bar, about 
6J' long. This should first be executed in lead. By no other 
means so well can one's judgment as to quantity of material 
and methods of manipulation be cultivated. 




Fig. 77. 




Fig. 78. 

No. 11. (Fig. 79.) Forged fork. 

The vertical dimensions are omitted, 
it being impossible for an inexperi- 
enced person to hit them. The first 
operation is puncliing ; the second, 
splitting ; the third, fullering ; the 
fourth, drawing ; the fifth, finishing. 
The exercise is very difficult and 
should be preceded by a lead exer- ' 
cise. Students should be warned 
not to finish tlie small ends until the 
last thing, as they may otherwise be 
spoiled by burning. Later on, the 
student may attempt to construct this 
fork, by welding two pieces of round 
rod. When he has fairly tried the 
two methods, he may have an opinion 
as to their respective advantages. 



Stock, 1" X h" bar. 




Fig. 79. 



94 



THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. 



[Chap. in. 



No. 12. {Fig. 80.) Hook hanger. Stock, 1" X i" bar. 
Execute this in lead to begin with. The length of the hook will 
be a surprise. Flatten and punch the plate end before bending 
the hook. The exercise is not as difficult as it appears at first. 




Fig. SU. 



No. 13. (Fig. 81.) Bent brace. Stock, 1" X ¥' bar. This 
exercise combines the features of Nos. 10 and 12. If a particu- 
lar length is desired, the body of the brace should be left 
slightly in excess and then drawn as required for the finishing 
touch. It need not be done in lead. 




No. 14. {Fig. 82.) Plate riveting. The stock consists of 
two pieces of boiler-plate 5" X 10" with six equi-distant holes 
drilled in each. (This drilling should be carefully done by 
machine-shop students.) The last three rivets, at least, should 



Chap, m.] 



FIRST ATTEMPT AT WELDING. 



95 



be well put in, and the heads should be smoothly coned without 
indenting the plates. 



[ 


"up 


( 10- - > 




F 


: 


^^r^ K--l|'-)K--li"-) 




II 


fo 


■ 




1 







No. 15. {Fig. 83.) Log chain welding. Stock, %" round 
rods, about 9" long. This is the first attempt at welding, and a 
great man}^ points are to be carefully noted. Above all, the fire 
must be kept clean and in good condition. The reader is 




Fig. 83. 

referred to the lecture on "The Care of the Fire," which comes 
a few pages farther on. The operation of " scarfing " prepares 
the two ends which are to be united so as to have a single sur- 
face of contact, which should be nearly a plane oblique to the 
axes of the ends. A shoulder rarely welds, and hence is a 
source of weakness. Several attempts may be necessary to 



96 



THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. 



[Chap. m. 



make the first weld. The third link should be well done. The 
welding of the two ends of one piece is much easier than the 
welding of two separate pieces. 

If^o. 16. (Fig. 84.) Ribbed handle. Stock, a %" rod, about 
30" long. The rod is bent back and forth hot, till it is fourfold. 




Fig. 84. 

the cross-section being four tangent circles whose centers are at 
the vertices of a square ; then the ends are welded, embracing the 
parts uniformly. Tlie bundle is heated to a red heat, and 

the rods bent out by upsetting the 
bundle. Then again at a proper heat^ 
Avhile one end is held in a vise, the 
other end is turned 270°. 

No. 17. [Fig. 85.) Welded eye. 
Stock, I" round rod. As this is pre- 
liminary to No. 18, the free end should 
be long enough for the complete hook. 
About two inches of the end is drawn 
out to nearly four inches, bent round, 
and wielded to the shoulder on the 
body of the rod. The danger of 
burning is so great that one should 
aim at |" in thickness instead of ^'^ 
as the drawing shows. The exercise 
is not an easy one. 

No. 18. (Fig. 86.) Chain hook. 
The stock is furnished by No. 17. 
The shaft just below the eye is to be 
slightly reduced. The drawing shows the point of the hook a 




Chap, m.] 



FORGING EXERCISES. 



97 



little too long. For the sake of learning the length of the 
portion required for the hook, as well as the effect of bending, 
it is well to execute first in lead. 

No. 19. The welded angle. Stock, two 1" X ^" bars. 
This exercise shows a second way of making the piece shown in 
Fig. 75, No. 7. The scarfing of the two ends should give them 
very oblique slopes without shoulders. Tt would be well to 




Fig. 



practice the scarfing on two pieces of lead. With a good weld, 
this makes a much stronger piece than the bent angle. The 
teacher should test the strength of Nos. 7 and 19 in the presence 
of his class. 

No. 20. A straight weld. Stock, two pieces of rod of 
equal size. When finished, the piece should be of nearly uni- 
form size and should show no weld marks. This exercise, 
like the last, requires two people, and the difficulty of bringing 
the two pieces to the anvil at a proper heat and at the same 



98 



THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. 



[Chap. ill. 



time is one which must be met to be appreciated. As welds 
are more or less imperfect, it may be well to leave the cross- 
section a little large at the welded point. 

Nos. 21 and 22. Bolt heads. There are two ways of 
making a bolt by hand, and this exercise should be double. 
One way is to use a square rod larger than the body of the 
required bolt, draw out for the body, and upset for the head. 
That is one exercise. The other way is to use stock of the size 
required for the bolt, cut off a short piece, bend it into the 
form of a ring round one end (which should be slightly upset), 
and then weld and form the head. The second Avay is by far 
the most difficult. It is exceedingly hard to persuade the 
head to rest symmetrically on the shaft of the bolt. 

No. 23. (Fig. 87.) Crank arm. Stock, 1" X 1" bar. The 
" points ■' of this exercise are good shoulders to the circular 
>ends, and a uniform taper to the sides of the body of the piece. 





Fig. 87. 



Fig. 



No. 24. [Fig. 88.) Heavy crank arm. Stock, 1^" X V 
bar. This is similar to the last, but the work is much heavier. 
The heavy sledges come in well on an exercise like this ; two 
or three men may well work on one piece. 



Chap. III.] 



EXERCISES IN FORGING. 



99 



No. 25. (Fig. 89.) Blacksmith's tongs. Stock, 1" X 1" 
bars, about 6" long. The exact shape of these parts should 
first be produced iu lead, starting with stock 1" X 1" X 6". It 




is only when every detail of form, holding, and striking is 

clearly in the mind that it is economy to start on the iron. 

The required width of the 

jaw-opening may vary with 

the demands of the forges. 

The long handles may be 

welded on before the jaws 

are finished. Each class 

should leave the forges 

well furnished with tools 

for the next year's class. 

Good tongs are evidence 

of good w^orkmen. 

No. 26. (Fig. 90.) The 
dog. Stock, 1' round, 
about 4" long. The hole 
is first punched, and then 
■enlarged by splitting, and 
working over a mandrel. 

This " dog " is to be subsequently finished in the machine-shop 
by the maker. 




100 



THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. 



[Ohap. HI. 



Xo, 27. {Fig:. 91.) Cold chisel. Stock, I" octagonal tool- 
steel. In forging steel, great care must be taken not to burn 
the piece. Burnt steel is worthless. This exercise is first a 
uniform draw to an edge. The operation of Tempering which 
is to 'follow should have many preliminary illustrations and 
exercises. Eveiy student should temper his 
chisel, even if he has to temper it several times 
in order to get it right. 



Fig. 91. 




Fig. 92. - ■ ^ 

No. 28. (Fig. 92.) Threading tool. Stock, 
I" X I" tool-steel. This tool, and the five which 
follow, are for the student's own use next year 
in the machine-shop. They furnish good exer- 
cises in forging and temi^ering steel, as well as 
meet the demand for tools. 




No. 29. (Fig. 93.) Round-nose tool. Stock, I" X I" 
tool-steel. Before this tool is used in the lathe the working end 



Chap. in.J FORGING STEEL TOOLS. 101 

is to be ground to a semicircular outline ; it should, however, 
leave the anvil Avith square corners. 




Fig. 94. 

JVo. 30. {Fig. 94.) Side tool. Stock, same as No. 29. 
First execute in lead, for the sake of getting exact dimensions. 




Fig. 96. 

No. 31. (Fig. 95.) Parting tool. Stock, same as the last. 
First execute in lead. 




No. 32. {Fig. 96.) Diamond point. Stock, the same as 
the last. First execute in lead. The exact shape is not easy to 
get from a uniform bar. 



102 



THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. 



[Chap, m. 



No. 33* (Fig. 97.) Inside tool. Stock, the same as for 
No. 32. All these steel tools are to be tempered. 




Fig. 97. 

No, 34. [Fig. 98.) The hardy. Stock, H" X H" bar 

steel. This is an anvil tool 
and should fit the anvil. 
No. 35. (Fig. 99.) The set- 

hammer. Stock, U" X H" 




Fig. 9S. 



bar steel. The punching and 
forming the large hole in steel 
that can not be safely heated beyond a certain point, is a diffi- 
cult task for a learner. 



Chap. in,J 



FORGING STEEL TOOLS. 



103 



No. 36. {Fig:. 100.) The flatter. Stock, 1^' X 1|" bar 
steel The face of the tool is 2' square. The whole job is a 
little heavier than the last. 





Fig. 100. 



Fig. 101. 



. No. 37. (Fig. 101.) The fuller. Stock, H" X U" bar 
steel. This exercise is not unlike No. 35 in many respects and 
may be made to 
take its place ac- 
cording to the de- 
mands of the shop. 
No, 38. (Fig. 
102.) The bottom 
swage. Stock, 2" 
X 1" bar steel. 
This is the heavi- 
est work in the 
shop and may very 
properly end the 
series of exercises. 
The shank calls 
for heavy forging. 
The groove is to be accurately formed by a steel templet. 




Fig. 102. 



104 TUE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. [Chap. III. 

The last five exereises funiisli tools for the forging-shop 
itself. It is obvious that one finished piece may very properly 
serve as -the stock for another slightly smaller. It is obvious 
also that for a difficult process, in which every pupil is likely to 
fail for the first attempt, a piece of scrap or a small trial piece 
may be used. For instance, no one succeeds the first time in 
making a welded bolt-head from a piece of round rod ; some 
never succeed. 

In difficult processes, quality should be aimed at before 
quantity. In making a weld, for instance, one must learn the 
conditions of a good weld before any attention can be paid to 
dimensions. It thus appears that what I have put down as one 
exercise may in reality combine several. 

The process of tempering is a very delicate one, and requires 
explicit directions and full illustrations. The teacher should 
produce in the presence of his class a series of tempers with 
different colors and should explain and illustrate the peculiar 
advantages and disadvantages of each. 

At the end of the series of regular exercises in a shop, one or 
two new exercises should be given with a view to develop the 
ingenuity and inventive talent of the pupils. The drawings 
should show the finished work, and no clew should be given by 
the teacher as to how the work is to be done. Every boy 
should be required to think out and put down in writing and 
illustrate by drawings: (1) the order of the steps, (2) the 
tools to be used, (3) the methods of work. These should be 
carefully examined, criticised, and compared. Good points 
ought to be fully recognized and commended. The teacher 
should then select or arrange the best course, and let the 
project be executed. 

THE MANAGEMENT OF THE FIRE. 

I have thought it best to give under this head an almost ver- 
batim extract from the instructions given by our accomplished 
teacher of forging, Mr. Charles E. Jones. 

Imagine him at his forge in the center of a semicircle of 
interested boys, no one of whom has yet had an iron in the fire. 

As the instruction begins and goes on imagine him " suiting 



Chap, m.] THE MANAGEMENT OF THE FIRE. 105 

the action to the word " with a force and fitness which Hamlet 
never dreamed of. In fact tlie eager eyes of the boys follow 
what he does as their ears drink in what he says. In the course 
of his short lecture he shows them just how to do it, as well as 
*' how not to do it." Now listen and watch him ! 

'•'• Before lighting the fire I wish to call your attention to the 
blast orifice — also to the blast gate, and to explain how to use 
it. I shall also give you a few hints upon the care and manage- 
ment of the fire. 

" In the first place notice the position of the blast opening 
relative to the forge, for it is immediately over the blast opening 
that the fire is hottest ; it is at this point we wish to place the 
work to be heated, that is, some three or four inches above and 
immediately over the blast opening." 

[Here Mr. Jones places the kindling and coals, and lights 
the fire. He turns on a proper blast and soon has a mass of 
glowing coals.] " It will be readily seen that to heat the work 
w^e must have some fuel between the work and the jet of air 
that is urging the fire. Hence we must not put the iron too 
low, not only because the point I have named is probably the hot- 
test part of the fire, and consequently will heat the work the 
quickest, but because, as the fuel burns away, the cinder, in a 
liquid state, is gradually settling to the bottom of the shallow 
pit in which the fire is built ; and if the work is put too low in 
the fire, it becomes coated with this semi-vitreous mass which 
when worked on the anvil is driven into the surface of the iron. 
When this is cooled it contracts and scales off, leaving the 
surface of the iron deeply pitted with the appearance of being 
rust-eaten. 

" The fire should be kept as small as will possibly heat the 
work in hand ; in our case say from four to six inches in diame- 
ter. This is accomplished partly by packing the coal as hard 
as possible around the desired size of fire, and partly by fre- 
quently sprinkling around the fire with water whenever it 
shows signs of spreading. This packing of the coals around the 
fire also prevents in a measure a wide disturbance of the fire 
whenever the work is thrust into it. Some disturbance cannot 
be avoided, consequently the fire should always be repaired 



106 THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. [chap, HI. 

when this happens, care being taken not to throw in the green 
coal first, but those portions that are the hottest ; this is 
important, particularly as the work approaches a high tempera- 
ture, a welding heat for instance. At such a time the thrust- 
ing in of cold fuel cools the fire and sets back the heat. In 
these forges the size of the fire is in part regulated by the ring 
of fire bricks which forms a sort of fire-pot two or three inches 
deep. In no case must these bricks be loosened or disturbed. 

" In this connection the blast also plays an important part. 
Greater force should be given towards the end of the heating, 
except in case of small work, where a uniform amount of blast 
is given, graded as nicely as possible to the size of the fire. 
If too much blast is given and the fire is nice and clean, the 
burning coals are scattered over the hearth ; in fact, this fre- 
quently happens, particularly just after the fire has been cleaned 
of the cinder. 

" Sufficient coal should always be kept on the forge to keep 
up the embankment, or backing, previously spoken of, the coal 
to replenish the fire being drawn up from the edges nearest the 
fire with the rake or shovel. 

" I should also explain that, as the blower furnishes a uniform 
pressure of blast, the way to control the blast to suit the size 
of fire is by giving the blast-gate a greater or less opening : this, 
after a few hours' practice, is generally pretty well understood. 
To keep the fire reasonably small is much more difficult. 
When told to sprinkle it you will often overdo it to such an 
extent as to put out the fire at the bottom, leaving only a layer 
of live coals on the surface ; you will then be surprised that 
your iron does not heat, but it will be no longer a mystery 
when the surface coals are removed and it is seen that the 
work lies imbedded in damp ashes only. I must here explain 
that the only means we have of ascertaining when the work" is 
of the proper heat, is by withdrawing it from the fire and look- 
ing at it, quickly replacing it if not of the proper heat. When 
it is withdrawn, you should notice if it is being heated at the 
proper place ; if it is not, then push farther in, or not so far, as 
the case may be, for it frequently happens that the cinder 
obstructs or deflects the blast in such a manner that the hottest 



Chap, m.] i¥iJ. JONES GIVES A PRACTICAL EXERCISE. 107 

part of the fire is not where we naturally look for it, viz. imme- 
diately over the tweer opening. You must therefore keep your 
eyes open and your wits about you all the while. 

" I shall teach you the several degrees of heat we shall need» 
and how to recognize them as our exercises proceed. 

" From what I have said and from what you would naturally 
expect, we shall look for the cinder in the bottom of the fire- 
pot, the hottest coals next above, and the half incandescent coals 
on the surface. These positions suggest the method of cleaning 
the fire. By cleaning the fire I mean removing the cinder 
which is a mass of ashes and incombustible material always 
found more or less in coal. This refuse melts partially and 
cakes into layers which must be removed every hour or two so 
as to leave the fire clean. When done at all the cleaning should 
be thoroughly done, as follows : — 

" First rake away the half incandescent coal into a pile by 
itself. Next, draw the fully glowing incandescent coals into a 
second pile just beyond the edge of the fire-pot. Now with the 
shovel quickly cut out the layer of cinder and throw it on the 
cinder pilfe under the forge. Then carefully draw back the live 
coals into the fire-pot, keeping them together as much as possi- 
ble. Next, draw over and around them the half burning coals 
and put on the blast. Green coals may now be packed around 
and sprinkled. In a moment you have a clean and hot fire." 

The reader must bear in mind that while thus describing the 
process Mr. Jones is actually going through it in a skillful and 
efficient manner. But not that alone : the next step is for 
every boy to go to his individual forge and go through the same 
operations himself under the teacher's eye. A single glance 
tells the expert whether his instructions and example are being 
followed or not, and a few extra words and motions suffice to 
set right a boy who has forgotten or who has not understood. 
No boy fails to be interested and attentive, though some fail to 
comprehend the first time. 

Fullness of explanation and illustration is not peculiar to this 
exercise ; it is characteristic of every exercise. Ab uno disce 
omnes. 



108 THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. [Chap. ni. 



SOLDERING AND BRAZING. 

As already explained the time to be spent in molding and 
pattern-making may properly be one-fourth of the shop-time of 
the second year, a maximum of one hundred hours, making no 
allowance for certain exercises in soldering, which may receive 
more or less attention according to the facilities for that work. 
In the St. Louis school we have facilities for but four simul- 
taneous workmen at soldering, and only miscellaneous work in 
that direction has been done- The principles involved can be 
taught in two or three lessons, but considerable practice would 
be necessary to their full comprehension. The construction of 
an elbow to a pipe, or an oil-can or coffee-pot suffices to test 
both one's knowledge of hard-soldering, and his command of 
the subject of development of surfaces in drawing. Brazing 
may be taught in a lesson or two in the forging-shop. A single 
exercise in brazing two pieces of iron together is exceedingly 
instructive. 

The three divisions of a class may very naturally take up 
pattern-making and molding in succession. 

PATTERN-MAKING AND MOLDING.^ 

Differing from the practice in many lines of work, it is not 
usually the case that a pattern-maker is furnished with drawings 
which he may exactly follow. In other lines one is given a 
drawing of the finished piece, and he is expected to follow it 
closely ; in the case of pattern-making, the pattern must in the 
majority of instances have a shape differing from that shown in 
the drawing. This is chiefly because of the requirements and 
methods of the foundry, snice it is there that the patterns are 
used. For these reasons a pattern-maker, in addition to skill in 
the use of his special tools and ability to read drawings, must 
be able to make the modified drawings required for his work ; 
and to do this intelligently he must understand the methods of 
the foundry. 



1 What is said under the head of Pattern-Making and Molding is largely the 
work of Mr. Charles F. White, the Superintendent of Shop-work in the St. Louis 
Manual Training School. 



Chap. III.] PRELIMINA R Y FO UNDR Y- WORK. 109 

Therefore in teaching it is best that some foundry-work pre- 
cede pattern-making. Unless this is done the student is obliged 
to do a great deal of work which he does not understand the 
reasons for — a practice contrary to the spirit of a manual train- 
ing school. It may be remarked that, very properly, students 
wish to use their own patterns in the foundry and to prove 
them by trial. A short time is sufficient for this, so that it is 
best to divide the foundry-work, giving the larger share before 
the course in pattern-making. 

We therefore begin with the 

Foundry- Work. 

As patterns must be made with constant reference to their 
use in molding (that is the forming of molds), so molds must 
be made with constant reference to their use as receptacles, 
capable of receiving and retaining the liquid poured into them. 
Each of the metals used in foundry-work has characteristics of 
its own, needing special treatment. 

Molds for most work are made of moist sand. Into these is 
usually poured a molten metal at high temperature. There 
results a sudden and rapid generation of steam, hydrogen, and 
other gases. These gases must be permitted to escape readily 
or the resulting pressure Avill force the metal from the mold, 
which mishap is called "blowing." A mold must possess 
sufficient strength and firmness to resist the shocks of handling 
and retain shape against the flow and pressure of the liquid ; 
moisture and close compact or ramming secure this. On the 
other hand, porosity for the escape of gases is equally needful ; 
dryness and light compact secure this. Excess of moisture 
causes excessive gas production, calling for extra porosity. 
Judgment in properly balancing these opposing conditions is 
an essential part of the foundry-man's skill. 

Sand of the quality known as molding-sand possesses in a 
large degree the desirable elements of porosity and of cohesion 
when moderately moist. 

The receptacle which holds both pattern and sand is called 
the "^as^." In its simplest form a flask may be described as a 
pair of boxes of similar shape and size, but without top or bot- 



110 



THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE l^EAR. 



[Chap. III. 



torn These boxes are prevented from separating horizontally 
by suitable pins, which however permit ready separation verti- 
cally Two flat boards as wide as the flask complete the 
apparatus. The lower part of the flask is called the - drag r 
the upper part is called the ^^ coper The drag rests on the 
bottom-board. The other board, called the mold-board, is used 
at an earlier stage and is laid aside. 




Fig. 103. A Simple Flask. 

Fig 103 shows the cope, drag, and the bottom-board. The. 
small pieces of metal shown at a, b, and c are of malleable iron. 
They may be readily found in the market. 

Flasks are made either of wood or iron, and are of almost as 
many shapes and proportions as there are forms to be molded. 
As a rule the drag is seldom disturbed after the pattern has 
been removed from the sand (drawn). The cope on the con- 
trary must usually be moved, and hence the sand it contains 
must receive its support from the sides instead of from under- 
neath. As a consequence, all copes of large area compared with 



Chap, ni.] THE OUTFIT OF THE MOLDING-ROOM. 



Ill 



their depth must contain partition bars or ribs, numerous enough 

to sustain the sand. These bars must be shaped so as to 

approach without touching the pattern, and have beveled 

''edges next the pattern to permit uniform ramming. Besides 

these bars, pieces of wood (" soldiers "), L shaped pieces of iron 

{" gaggers "), spikes, nails, and brads are used to assist in hold' 

ing the sand in place. The inside of the cope, the bars, the ends 

of the soldiers, gaggers, etc., 

are usually clay-washed to 

make the sand adhere better. 

The tools needed for a 

school outfit may be limited 

to the following : — 

A small shovel. 

A 12-inch brass wire sieve 

or riddle J-inch mesh. 

A molder's trowel, 1"X 4". 
A i-inch lifter. 
A draw-spike, I" diameter 
by 6" long (see Fig. 104). 

A large draw-spike, |" di- 
ameter by 8" long. 

These draw-spikes should be made of round tool-steel drawn 
to a long, square point. 

A vent-wire (Fig. 105) consisting of a stout knitting-needle 
six or eight inches long inserted in an awl handle. 

A couple of rammers (Fig. 106), 
one I2 inches in diameter, the other 
3 inches. 

A half-pint tin can (Fig. 107) with 
perforated top for sprinkling parting- 
sand. 

The above are needed by each pupil. 
A six -quart sprinkling -can will 
suffice for four or five pupils. Simi- 
larly, a six-quart milk-pail (with strainer removed from the 
spout) will be needed if plaster be used to fill the molds. 

Several conical wooden plugs (Fig. 108), a straight edge, a 



Fig. 104. 



Fig. 105. 



Fig. 106. 




Fig. 107. 



Fig. 108. 



112 



THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. 



[Chap. HL 




Fig. 109. 



small sponge, and a piece of tin two or three inches square bent 
as shown in Fig. 109 will be needed by each pupil as a gate- 
cutter. 

Parting-sand may be any fine powder 
which has very little cohesion, whether 
wet or dry. A coating of such sand be- 
tween two layers of molding sand will 
permit the latter to separate (part) 
readily. A mixture of burned sand and 
oxide of iron obtained from the "tum- 
bling-box " of a foundry is much used 
for parting-sand. 
The large number of tools used by practical molders in 
repairing and finishing molds are not necessary to our work,, 
and are hence omitted. 

The molding-benches should be trough-shaped, not less than 
12 inches deep by 20 inches wide at the top. A section of a 
double bench is shown in 
Fig. 110. The ledges in 
the troughs are continu- 
ous ; they support cross- 
sticks and boards. The 
benches should be strong- 
ly built and in rows al- 
lowing at leuBt, five feet of 
length to each pupil. It 
is well to allow the backs 
and partitions to come 
up high enough to give 
places for hanging the 
small tools, and to keep 
sand from being thrown 
into neighboring benches in the action of shoveling or ramming. 

Cores and Core-making. 

In many cast forms it is necessary to produce holes or interior 
cavities. This is done b}^ placing in the mold something which 
shall occupy the space which the liquid is not to fill. This 




Fig. 110. A Molding-Bench. 



Gbap. III.] 



CORES AND CORE-PRINTS. 



113 



something must be removable after the cast is made, and thei'e 
must be at least one opening for the removal. That which is 
so placed in the mold is called a '•'•core''' The meaning of the 
word is also extended so as to include additions to the mold 
outside the space to be filled by the liquid where the core is to 
be supported, or where an additional cavity is required in order 
to make a small projection to the main body of the casting. 
Those exterior parts of the mold which are to be filled by the 
cores or core-ends are called " core-prints.'"' 

Fig. Ill gives a vertical section of a mold ready for pouring. 
The parts of the pattern have been " drawn ; " a central core e 




Fig. 111. Section or a Flask, Mold, Cokes, etc. 



is shown extending at top and bottom into the core-prints made 
for it; there is also an external core, c, having a cavity in 
itself which is to contain a sort of horn to the main casting. 
If the pattern of the horn had been put on the main pattern it 
would have been impossible to get the pattern out of the mold, 
but by the use of the core it becomes easy. The cope, drag, 
and bottom-board are shown in position ; the plugs have been 
drawn from the pouring-gate Gr, and the riser M, and fine wire 
holes have been made to the points y, v to allow the gases to 
escape. 

Cores are made of a mixture of sand and some adhesive 
matter. Usually a little flour is mixed with the core-sand. 



114 THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. [Chap. in. 

This when moistened forms paste, and when dry or baked makes 
a firm block. Powdered rosin when lieated in the baking will 
also fasten the sand. Cores must be porous, and hence they are 
usually made of a coarser sand than the regular mold. A 
mixture of half molding and half river sand is suitable for 
most work. If melted metal is to be poured into the mold the 
cores must be well baked and provided with passages (vents) 
for the escape of gas, leading out at the ends. If plaster is 
used venting is not necessary and cores need be baked only 
when they are of weak or delicate shape. Most shapes require 
internal wires or rods to insure strength, particularly before 
baking. 

Cores are made by ramming the mixture above described into 
boxes which internally have the shapes wanted, and are called 
"core-boxes." These will be described later. The sand should 
not be so moist as to cause sticking to the sides of the box. 
If it can be easily passed through a i" sieve it will not be too 
moist. In ramming the cor^s use a small rammer, preferably 
an iron rod, keeping an excess of sand in the box and avoid- 
ing the formation of layers, which are always weak. Strength- 
ening wires are to be placed in the boxes and the sand rammed 
around them. Until dried they should be handled as little as 
possible and be carried on small iron or tin plates. 

In ordinary foundry practice, cores are all prepared by a 
core-maker, the molder having nothing to do with their design 
or construction. In school-work, however, it is best to have 
the cores prepared by the jDupils themselves. This being done 
the next step is 

Mold{7ig. 

We will follow the steps of molding the form shown in Fig. 
Ill, assuming the pattern to be in two parts divided at the 
parting-line. The first completed step is shown in Fig. 112. 

The mold-board was laid on the cross-sticks and the drag 
placed upon it bottom up. The lower portion of the pattern 
was then laid on the mold-board. The molding-sand is now 
sifted into the drag and rammed around the pattern, care being 
taken to have plenty of sand, to ram uniformly, and to avoid 



€hap. m] 



MAKING A MOLD. 



115 



layers. When somewhat more than full, the upper surface is 
scraped off with a ^straight edge, and the bottom-board laid on. 



drag 




mold-boari 

Fig. 112. LowEu Half of Pattern in Drag. 



Now comes the second step. The whole is carefully turned 
over and the mold-board is laid aside. The upper part of the 
pattern is now laid in place, guided by the little pins, and the 
cope is put on, guided^by its plates, over the pins on the drag. 
A thin layer of parting-sand is dusted over the whole. A 
runner plug which molds a passage for pouring is set up near 
the pattern, and the sand is filled in and rammed, a riser plug 




Fig. 113. Patterns in Position in the Sand. 



being put on the highest part of the pattern but not on the 
core-print. When the packing is finished, the appearance will 
be as in Fig. 113, which shows step No. 2 completed, a is the 
runner, and b is the riser. 



116 THE SECOND, on MIDDLE YEAR. [ch?,p. IIL 

The runner and riser are now drawn out; the coj)e is gently- 
lifted off, turned over, and laid on the mold-board. A draw- 
spike is driven into the pattern in the drag, and the pattern is 
loosened by gentle raps on the spike as it is held by the left 
hand. The pattern is then lifted out of the mold, technically 
drmvn, by the spike. A gate is now cut from the lower end 
of the runner to the mold, using a gate-cutter (Fig. 109). The 
pattern in the cope is now treated in the same way, and 
drawn. The cores are next placed in the mold, and the cope 
being replaced the liquid is poured in, filling the mold as in 
Fig. 111. 

If molds are poured with plaster it will be found necessary 
to have the runners, gates, and risers of ample size, as after 
the mold is filled the shrinkage must be supplied through the 
riser. The plaster may be kept from setting by gently churning 
a rod up and down in the riser. 

In preparing the plaster for pouring, use three parts of 
water to two parts of plaster, and stir well while the plaster 
is added. When about like cream in consistency, pour rapidly 
into the mold. Small metal castings can be taken from the 
molds in a few minutes. Plaster castings can be taken out 
with care in fifteen to thirty minutes, according to the state of 
the plaster when poured, the longer time being needed for 
plaster poured thin. Partly-set plaster must 7iever be mixed 
with fresh plaster. Mix anew every time. 

Cores in iron castings have the paste material so burned as to 
be friable and come out easily. With lead and light alloys 
cores are hard to get out, being simply hard-baked not scorched. 
With wet plaster the cores are so softened that they come out 
easily, though sometimes stout crooked wires must be left. 
Plaster castings may be cleansed by washing, and when dry by 
a stiff brush. 

In the example given, the pattern had been conveniently 
divided so as to give a flat or plane parting to the mold. But 
partings are often of other shapes, sometimes quite irregular,, 
and cut with tools in the sand. This will be well illustrated 
by the method used to mold a sheave or pulley for a rope. 
Such a pattern is made in halves divided across the axis. The 



Chap, ni] 



MOLDING A GROOVED PULLEY. 



117 



steps of the operation are simple and easy enough ; the diffi- 
culty lies in thinking out the process. 







Fig. 114. Half of Grooved Pulley Pattern in Drag. 

In 1, Fig. 114, we have half the pattern in the drag in the usual 
Avay. In 2, Fig. 115, we have the drag rolled over and an 
annular crater made all around the pattern, the outer slope 







4 

I 



Fig. Ho. Showing Conical Parting. 



being as gentle and smooth as possible, the inner slope being- 
formed b}'- the pattern itself. Parting-sand is now sprinkled 
on both sides of the excavation. 




IS: 






Fig. 116. Molding a Ring of Sand in the Groove. 

In 3, Fig. 116, we have a mound of sand well rammed cover- 
ing the upper half of the pattern and filling the crater, but 



118 



THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. 



[Chap. m. 



separated from the drag by the parting-sand. The mound is 
now cut down to a ring around the sheave, the upper slope 
being symmetrical with the lower, and left smooth. The cope 
is now placed in position, parting-sand is sprinkled on the ring, 
the cope, runners, risers, etc., are put in place, and the cope is 
rammed full of sand, as shown in 4, Fig. 117. 

There are now three separate bodies of sand in the flask : 
Jlrst, that in the main part of the drag ; second., that in the ring 
which fits into the groove in the pattern ; third, the main part 
in the cope. 

The next operation, of drawing the pattern, is a delicate one. 
Lift the cope, letting the upper half of the pattern come with 

it. The cope is turned 
over, the pattern drawn 
from it, and the cope 
is replaced on the drag. 
The entire flask is now 
turned over and the 
drag is lifted off. The 
ring of sand now rests 
on the sand in the cope. 
The other half of the 
pattern is now re- 
moved, the core is in- 
serted into the "print" 
in the cope, the gate is cut in the drag (around the crater left 
for the ring and not shown in the drawing), the drag is in- 
verted and placed on the cope, and finally the entire flask is 
inverted and the mold is poured. 

The rationale of all this may not appear to the novice on the 
mere reading, but it will be clear enough when the directions 
are taken step by step in the laboratory. 




Fig. 117. Section of Flask, Pattern, Etc. 



The teacher should begin with simple forms, then proceed to 
examples like those given above. He will readily see what 
intermediate steps are necessary, and will see his way to mold- 
ing gradually the parts of an engine, and certain details of 
architecture. 



Chap, in.] ALLOWANCES FOR DRAFT, FINISH, ETC. 119 

The pioneer class of a school may find it necessary to take 
some pattern-making before molding, in order that patterns 
may be ready for use in the molding-room. This will however 
soon cure itself. To a great extent the method of uniform 
lessons should be, followed, and the pupils must not try to run 
till they have learned to walk. Complicated foliage forms and 
the use of wax for making plaster molds are not recommended. 

Pattern-Making. 

Assuming that the use to which a foundry pattern is to be 
put is understood, the first consideration is that of "draft." 
Draft is a modification in the form of a pattern for the purpose 
of making it possible to withdraw the parts of the pattern 
from the molding-sand which has been compactly rammed 
about them. Hence all pieces which are molded must be 
made tapering so that they may be taken from the sand with- 
out breaking or disturbing it. Many forms from their natural 
shape are readily drawn from the molding - sand, but the 
majority require special adaptation. 

A second consideration is the allowance made to permit 
finish in shops subsequent to the foundry. 

As a rule cast forms are only approximately correct in shape. 
The exact form of the finished piece is contaiyied in the piece as 
cast, as the statue is in the rough-hewn block of marble, and 
the aim is to have just enough excess of material to permit of 
a true and economic finish. 

In some branches of work, — stove-work for example, — the 
working patterns are of iron, and the cast-work approximates 
very closely to the required dimensions. 

In a manual training school, pupils may form some idea of 
what is practicable in ordinary casting. Of the location and 
amount of the extra material to be removed in finishing, the 
pattern-maker must be informed. 

A third consideration is that of alloAvance for slirhikage of 
the casting. 

Allowance for draft varies with circumstances, but a fair 
average for minimum draft may be taken as '^' in a foot, or 
1 in 96. 



120 



THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. 



[Ohap. HL 



Allowance for finish varies greatly, but for surfaces likely to 
be cast true and sound Jg" may be taken as enough. 

Shrinkage is also a variable quantity depending on the metal 
and upon the form of the casting. Pattern-makers' rules are 
made 121^" standard to the foot and graduated proportionally ; 
hence 1 in 96 may be assumed as an average allowance for 
shrinkage. 

These allowances are all to be added to external dimen- 
sions. 

For example: suppose a casting be required suited to a 
finished block 24'' X 18" X 6''. 




Fig. 118. Allowances in the Size of Patterns. 



The pattern is to be molded flat side down. See Fig. 118. 

Nothing need be added to a^ and J^ for draft, but each is to 
be increased by -^^ of itself, for shrinkage, and each face is 
to have ^^ of an inch for finish. The dimensions of the 
base will then be : a^ = 24 + ^ + yL + Jg = 24| inches, and 
^1 - 18 + U 



_i_ — 

.6 — 



18y^g inches. 



"T 16 "T 1( 

Similarly the thickness is to he c^ = Q -\- ^^ -f- -^^ -f~ iV ^^ ^T%' 
The dimensions of the top are to be increased still more for 
draft. As the block is a half a foot thick, the allowance on 
each side should be i of |- = -^^ inch, so that ^ of an inch more 
is to be added to each dimension of the top, which is thei:efore 
a,xh, = 241" X ISjY- 



Chap, m.] TREATMENT OF WOOD IN PATTERNS. 121 

Thus we see that tho we want a plain rectangular block 
24'^ X 18" X 6", the pattern is the frustum of a regular pyra- 
mid, one base being 241" x ISyV'' «nd the other 24f" -|- 18/g", 
and the thickness 6^^. This example will suffice to show how 
the main dimensions of the pattern are to differ from those 
of the required piece when finished. 

Very small details are often wholly covered up in the pattern. 

The rapping of small patterns will frequently enlarge the 
dimensions of a mold by ^ of an inch or more, so that pieces 
less than about 6" in length really need no allowance for 
shrinking, and hence the saying for such work : " Rappage will 
<equal shrinkage." 

The wood used for patterns should be straight grained and 
thoroughly seasoned. 

Hard woods are often used on fine and delicate patterns, but 
pine is most used for general work. 

It is best in arranging a pattern to have the grain of the 
several pieces run parallel. Shrinking (in the pattern itself, 
on account of drying) then takes place in the same direction on 
€acli piece, and the pattern holds together. If the grains are 
placed transversely, the tendency is for the shrinking to tear 
the joints apart, and to cause irregularities in surfaces that 
ought to be free from them. 

Thus, if in Fig. 119 the sloping sides be finished smooth at 
first, after a time they will take the shape shown, the top piece 
becoming narrower while the lower 
one retains its length, an irregu- 
larity that would destroy the draft. 

In spite of waterproof varnish, 
oontinued use loosens glue ; hence 
dependence must not be put on ^^'^- "'• ^'^^'^ °^ shbinking. 
glue ; it should be supplemented with nails or screws. All 
gluing should be done very neatly, leaving none on outside 
surfaces. Wire nails now so generally used are by far the best 
for pattern-work. 

As a general thing even in small work it will be found better 
to produce a given shape by building up rather than by cutting 
out from the solid. To illustrate : Suppose a pattern wanted 




122 THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. [chap. m. 

of the form shown in Fig. 120. It is possible by sufficient care 
and skill to produce it from a solid block, but it would involve 
working out the channel, keeping the sides and bottom true and 
at the proper angles. Moreover, the finish with sand-paper 
before and after varnishing would be difficult. On the other 
hand, if a bevel be set at the angle suitable for the draft, a 
piece for the body and single pieces for the two ribs may be 
prepared with a plane. These pieces can be easily sand-papered 
and varnished in detail with no internal corners to reach, and 
when ready they may be put together with a few nails. With 
a given degi'ee of skill a much more accurate pattern will be 




Fig. 120. Building up Patterns. 



the result. The point of finishing parts in detail before nailing 
up into shapes hard to secure in any other way is well worth 
bearing in mind. 

Patterns are necessarily exposed to dampness and should be 
well protected against it. One of the best means is thorough 
varnishing with shellac varnish. After the pattern is smoothly 
finished, the first application of varnish raises the little filaments- 
that have been rubbed down. When dry these filaments are 
brittle and the surface is rough : light sand-papering will break 
off the fibers and prepare the surface for a second coat of 
varnish. Four or five such coats are usually sufficient. It is 
customary to use black varnish on the main parts of fine 
patterns, and light varnish on the core-prints, which gives an 
excellent appearance. The best light varnish is made by dis- 



Chap, in.] 



DIVIDING PATTEBNS. 



123 



solving gum shellac (orange or white) in grain alcohol, no 
special proportions being required. For black varnish, stir 
lamp-black into the light varnish. A much cheaper varnish, is 
made by using in the same way wood alcohol instead of grain 
alcohol, for light color, but lamp-black causes this to curdle ; 
hence it is unfit for the black varnish. 

From what has been shown und6r the head of molding, it 
will be seen that it is desirable to have a pattern divide or sepa- 
rate at the plane of " parting." The parts are held in proper 
relation to each other by two or more pins fitting in corre- 
sponding holes. The pins should both be in the same part, and 
in the one which should be molded in the cope. The pins should 
fit snugly, but not bind in the least. They should be put in 
square with the parting.plane, and be short with rounded ends. 




"!'"• ' parting 



Fig. 121. Subdivision of a Pattern. 



The only general rule about deciding where to divide is that 
it is desirable to have each part remain in its place until rapped 
and drawn with the drawspike. Sometimes it is best to have 
more than one separation in the pattern even if there be but 
one parting in the flask. This is the case where the pattern is 
deep and safe rapping is difficult. This is illustrated in Fig. 
121, which shows a separation between the deep rib and the 
broad top. The rib is to be rapped and drawn after the broad 
part over it has been removed. 

In the case of an external core, we make the "print" and 
core of the easiest shape to mold, according to the situation. 
Core-prints must be long enough to ensure supports to the 
weight of the cove without crushing the sand. Core-prints 
that go into the drag of a flask are made as straight as possible, 
since they hold and sustain the core during the closing of the 
flask. Those that go in the cope should have a more decided 



124 THE SECOND, OR MIDDLE YEAR. [chap, IH. 

taper to ensure proper closing, even if slightly out of line at 
first. The pins and sockets of the flask itself should have a 
perfectly easy but snug fit. 

Cases sometimes occur in which it is desirable to have a 
small projecting piece on a pattern at a place where, if attached 
to the main portion of the pattern, it would render drawing 
impossible. In many such cases the projection is made separate 
and attached to the main part with pins or dove-tails, so that 
the main part may be drawn first, and the projection may then 
be drawn horizontally into the hole left by the body of the 
pattern. A pin may project into the sand and be drawn from 
the sand after the ramming of sand has been partly done. This 
is really forming a secondary parting, and it is evident that the 
principle may be extended indefinitely. 

Sharp corners on patterns should be avoided whenever it is 
possible ta do so. External angles should be rounded off, and 
internal corners should be filled with a small, quarter-circle 
outline, technically called a fillet. Strength of form and ease of 
molding demand this. 

When possible, fillets should be of solid wood, but in many 
places wax is a very good substitute and is more easily applied. 
The wax should be worked into fine rolls between two boards 
which are slightly warmed. These rolls are laid along the cor- 
ners to be filled, and forced evenly into their places by a round- 
ended tool of iron or steel which has previously been warmed 
just enough to make the wax yield readily to its touch. In a 
similar way, accidental holes in the patterns may be filled. 

Core-Boxes. 

From what has been said of core-making, it will be understood 
that a core-box ought to be made with a view to getting the 
core out with the least strain on it. It is far best to remove 
the box from the core, instead of the core from the box. This 
rather obscure remark may best be understood by considering 
the case of a rectangular core. If a box with a mere cover 
were made, draft would bje necessary to make it possible to get 
the core out, and then with danger of breaking. Hence the 
box is made open at two opposite ends or sides, as shown in 



Chap, in.] 



DIVIDING A COBE-BOX. 



125 



Fig. 122. The box is divided along the zig-zag line JJ, while 
the upper and lower ends are open. The halves are clamped 
together, and the box is placed on end on a flat piece of sheet 
iron or tin, and then remains in that position while the core is 
rammed. The box is then undamped and the parts are drawn 
apart, as shown by the arrows, leaving the core standing on 
the plate. It may then be 
carried to the baking -oven 
with small danger of break- 
ing. This method of making 
boxes should be applied to 
all forms. Cylindrical cores 
should be left standing on 
their ends. ^^^ 

Very often a core may be ^'*^' ^^^" 
made in halves and pasted 
together. In such cases a half-box and the plate will suffice. 

The building-up method should always be followed in making 
core-boxes, from the difficulty of executing accurate hollow 
forms, and for convenience in separating. The inner surfaces 
of core-boxes should be protected with shellac varnish, as 
described above for patterns. 




Horizontal Section of Box 
AND Core. 



126 THE THIRD, OR SENIOR YEAR. [Chap. IV. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE THIRD, OR SENIOR YEAR. 

LIKE other schools the Manual Training School suffers a 
loss of students as the classes progress in their course ; but 
unlike most it holds a majority to the end. Hence our divisions 
will be smaller, but we shall still keep them three in number.^ 
I shall put the maximum in each division at twenty. It will be 
observed that I make no provision for an instructor assistant to 
the teacher of a division. In this respect I differ from excellent 
educators. It is proper that I should give the reasons for my 
preference. 

1. In the first place, the presence of an assistant in the care 
of a single division involves indirect responsibility, which 
should always be avoided if possible. It is impossible to define 
the respective duties of principal and assistant. To define them 
clearly would be to subdivide the section. 

2. The teacher who with an assistant has charge of a division 
of thirty or forty boys is much less sure of his ground than 
the teacher with twenty under his sole direction. He can not 
know where they are, what they are doing, what difficulties 
they are meeting, what difficulties they have met and overcome, 
nor just what suggestion or help they need, when he has not 
personally seen both their work and their working. 

3. He who has given the class directions and personally 
illustrated the method is the only person competent to criticise 
those who attempt to follow those directions. An assistant 
may come pretty near him, but there is always a sense of 
uncertainty, and the opportunities for honest, but unfortunate, 
differences of opinion are greatly increased. 

1 See page 11 m regard to attendance. 



Ctap. IV.] OBJECTIONS TO A CLASS ASSISTANT. 127 

I grant that if a division is to scatter, and, like the brothers 
Curatii, to string themselves out in Indian file over the whole 
series of exercises, or over the whole range of practical work 
which the shop may unwisely and prematurely undertake, — I 
grant that under such circumstances an assistant, or even 
several assistants may be necessary. As the class scatters, 
and becomes a sort of go-as-you-please, every-man-for-himself 
collection of individuals, all of the characteristics of a school 
disappear, and class-methods are at an end, and very few pupils 
can be instructed in new work by one teacher. I was very 
sorry to observe this state of things in several otherwise excel- 
lent European schools, and I learn that it is always character- 
istic of the Swedish " Slojd " schools. [See Chapter XIV.] The 
aim appeared to be to get through with a particular series of 
exercises as soon as possible. The rapid workers (not neces- 
sarily the best) soon distanced their fellows, and worked on in 
virtual independence. They completely lost the wholesome 
effect of class comparison and criticism in which good and bad 
points should be made prominent, and where what Dr. Harris 
calls the " leverage of the class " should be utilized to its full 
extent to stimulate individual intelligence. 

So also if a shop takes orders and manufactures for the mar- 
ket, there should be several assistants who are at the same tiriie 
workmen standing ready to do those parts which can not be 
left to the uncertain hands of untrained lads. 

I think that no competent teacher would wish to have an 
assistant in teaching a division in algebra, or Latin, or English 
composition, or drawing. If the division were too large for one 
teacher, he would subdivide it and place the assistant in direct 
charge of one part. Perhaps I have just Italicized the word 
which explains the whole matter. If the person who lectures 
and gives general directions to a class is unable to properly 
supervise the practical working of the class, then certainly it is 
better for him to have an assistant ; and I would advise him to 
take his place at the bench, anvil or lathe, and acquire some 
primitive ideas. 

The class program is arranged as easily as before, there being 
three teachers and three rooms (including the shop). 



128 



THE THIRD, OR SENIOR YEAR. 



[Ohap. IT. 



DAILY PROGRAM. 



Divis- 
ion. 


9—10. 10—11. 


11—18. 


12-1. 


1—2. 


3—3. 


3—-. 


I. 


Macliine-Shop. 


Geome- 
try. 


History 

and 

Literature 

or 

Modern 
Language. 


3 


Science. 


Drawing. 


IL 


History 

and 

Literature 

or 

Modern 

Language. 


Geometry. 


Macliine-Shop. 


Drawing. 


Science. 


IIL 


Geometry. 


History 

and 

Literature 

or 

Modern 

Language. 


Science. 


Drawing. 


Macliine-Shop. 



I have assumed that the teacher of drawing is also the teacher 
of geometiy. Of course this is not at all necessary, tho I think 
it desirable. It is more than probable that the teacher of draw- 
ing for another class would also be the teacher of drawing for 
this class, there being a compensating change in either the 
physical or mathematical teacher. This would of course obviate 
the necessity of fitting u]3 a drawing room for this class alone. 
As a matter of fact, it is not easy to find competent drawing 
teachers among teachers otherwise well educated. This de- 
ficiency will disappear as graduates of manual training and the 
higher technical schools become more numerous.^ 

The mathematics should include the usual books of element- 
ary and solid geometry, and enough of plane trigonometry and . 
logarithms to lead to a rational study of mensuration. Teachers 
of mathematics should beware of trying to cover too much 
ground. It is not how much, but hoio ivell, that determines the 
character and value of one's mathematical training. I have 
noticed with regret that teachers of secondary schools, particu- 

^ In point of fact in the St. Louis School there are four divisions in the Junior 
four in the Middle, and ^;hr«e in the Senior Class, -eleven in all, furnishing sufli- 
cient work for two teachers devoted exclusively to drawing. The two drawing 
rooms are used exclusively as such. 



Chap. IV.] UNDUE HASTE IN MATHEMATICS. 129 

larly in the West, have been inclined to push their pupils pre- 
maturely into the study of analytical geometry and even the 
calculus. The inutility, nay the harmfulness of such efforts 
has been only too evident. At best, the pupils get only a very 
shallow notion of those vast subjects, and no adequate concept . 
tion of the uses to which they may be put; while on the other 
hand, they often get the impression, that their understanding 
of such subjects is about on a par with the attainments of a 
well-taught mathematician, and that their inability to see any 
practical use in such studies is sufficient proof that there is 
no real practical need of such studies to practical men. No 
result more fatal to high scholarship and successful engineering 
could be found. A student knows his algebra only when he is 
so familiar with its various operations and methods of application, 
that it comes as naturally into his hands as an instrument of 
investigation as does his arithmetic or the principles of physics. 
It is the same with geometry, which is not so much a col- 
lection of facts about geometrical figures and solids, as the 
embodiment of methods of reasoning which are of the first 
importance to every reasoner. Unless a student can readily 
block out the steps in the argument without the conscious use 
of a word, he can not be said to knoiv geometry. When a class 
is hurried through the subject, not, as is often said, for the 
purpose of becoming experts, but for the sake of the broad 
culture that is supposed to result, it fails. Neither skill nor 
culture results; it is only a shallow conceit and a misappre- 
hension of the whole matter. Such people. are without the 
training necessary to just appreciation of either sound learning 
or high culture.^ 

1 An eminent mathematician and professor of engineering recently told me 
that while in a city high school he was put through a whole range of college 
mathematics. As should hav-e been expected, he attained to no comprehension of 
the subjects, and decided that he had no mathematical capacity. Of course he 
hated mathematics with all his heart. History however was his delight. Later 
he went to a higher institution, where the course was thorough, and again he went 
over the whole course of pure and applied mathematics with a mind properly 
matured. It was a revelation to him. Instead of having no mathematical ability, 
he found he had abilities of a high order. He is clearly of the opinion that the 
time spent in the high school on the higher mathematics (beyond geometry and 
algebra) is worse than wasted. 



130 THE THIRD, OR SENIOR YEAR. [Ohap. IV. 

The science study of the Senior year should embrace practi- 
cal and some theoretical chemistry, physiology, and some of 
the principles of book-keeping. The comparative inutility of 
chemistry without a working laboratory was long ago shown. 
No laboratory work has been more thoroughly worked out than 
that of chemistry. In nearly all European and English schools 
of secondary grade, chemistry is admirably provided for. A 
laboratory accommodating twenty pupils simultaneously is really 
an essential feature of a manual training school. The details 
of such a laboratory are easy to find. 

Book-keeping is introduced, not for the purpose of making 
book-keepers, but for showing how very simple book-keeping is 
when its principles are clearly seen. There are countless good 
ways of keeping books, adapted to a great variety of conditions, 
and all are perfectly intelligible to a well-taught person, who 
understands a few simple propositions. 

The language study may be quite varied in the different 
sections of the class. Some will certainly want a year's study 
of French or German, in accordance with the requirements of 
institutions of higher education to which many of the boys are 
looking forward. Such boys should in common with all the 
rest of the class devote one day each week to the study and 
practice of English composition. The students are now at the 
age of seventeen or eighteen years, and are capable of appre- 
ciating style, and of beginning to form styles for themselves. 
Nothing but a persistent study of the styles of good writers, 
and a conscious attempt to imitate them, will lead to the habit 
of writing clearly, purely, and concisely.^ The principles of 
political economy treated in a very elementary way may here 
be studied with great interest and profit. 

The principles of civics should be quite fully considered in 
connection with something like the following scheme. I doubt 
very much the use of a class text-book on this subject. A good 
teacher can easily lead his class into a very thoughtful study 

1 A chapter of Buckle; a lecture of Tyndall; a poem of Longfellow's; a letter 
of Junius; a play of Shakespere; a life from Smiles; will go far in showing what 
really good English is. Above all, avoid the stilted style of Irving's West- 
minster Abbey, and the extravaganzas of Carlyle and Ruskin. 



Chap. IV.] THE DUTIES OF CITIZENSHIP. 131 

of the subject; and the joint preparation of a syllabus will 
develop more interest and make a deeper impression than any 
mere text-book, however skillfully written. 
I suggest a course somewhat like this : — 

1. A careful analysis of our scheme of government^ national, 
state, and municipal, with a general statement of the functions 
of each. If this statement is re-made and re-arranged and re- 
illustrated with every new class, the teacher may be sure of a 
lively and fresh interest. Fine distinctions and exact limits 
must be omitted. 

2. The necessary expenses of each of the governments, with a 
detail of the institutions which must be supported by taxation. 

3. The various methods of levying and collecting taxes in 
actual use. 

4. The duties of citizenship., such as, — 

(a) The maintenance of individual independence, by earning 
one's own living. 

(6) The contribution of one's share by taxes to the necessary 
expenses of government. 

(c) A prompt and active participation in all measures neces- 
sary to secure the selection of faithful and competent public 
servants to discharge the duties of legislation and government ; 
i.e., to elect good legislators and officers. 

(c?) The cultivation of a proper public opinion in favor of 
honesty, temperance, and the refinements of civilized life. 

(e) The contribution of something, small or great, to the 
common weal., beyond the duties in (a), (5), and (c), whereby 
the world may actually be the better for one's having lived 
in it. 

If a teacher does no more than to discuss these points with 
liis class (a few other points might come in, tho I would be 
careful not to attempt too much), say twice a week for ten 
weeks, and at the end arrange and print a syllabus covering all 
the ground gone over, and leave a copy in the hands of each 
pupil, he would do a most usefitl work, and about all it is wise 
to undertake in a school of secondary grade. The rest of the 
language allowance of time may be devoted to general history 
«,nd the study of Grecian mythology. 



132 THE THIRD, OR SENIOR YEAR. [Chap. IV. 



DRAWING. 

The drawing takes on this year a more finished shape. For 
the first time in their course, the students are prepared to 
appreciate and profit by a course of purely geometrical draw- 
ing. The object of this is not to commit to memory solutions 
of particular problems, or to dispense with T-square and tri- 
angles, but to get some adequate idea of instrumental accuracy, 
and a ready command of methods of close approximation. The 
teacher should, however, avoid giving, as exact, a method which 
is after all only approximate. In an absolutely exact method, 
the closer the method is followed, the more nearly exact will 
be the result ; if the method be only approximate, the reverse 
result is possible. 

Line and brush shading of geometrical forms (spheres, cones, 
cylinders, etc.), with the outlines of simple, easily formed shad- 
ows, prepares for the drawing and shading of forms based on 
the geometric, in architectural and machine drawing. A certain 
amount of pen and ink sketching, first from copies (to get 
command of the style) and then from objects, greatly increases 
one's ability to make a rapid, freehand drawing (projection or 
"pictorial," as maybe best suited to the case). In this work 
the student should aim at a faultless style of freehand sketch- 
ing from actual examination and measurement. If possible 
these sketches should be done well the first time, i.e. the student 
should not make poor sketches with the expectation of copying 
them " in style " at his leisure. The first sketches should be 
as nearly perfect as possible ; a second set made from tliem 
would have little value except to show how the first should 
have been made. 

A finished, shaded drawing of some structure or working 
machine with full details is intended to finish the course and to 
embody nearly all that the student has learned in drawing. It 
should include some tracing or drawing with ink on cloth. 
The chief drawing should be of large size, and all the work 
should be clean and exact. The lettering and border should 
be carefully done, and in a style to suit the drawing. This 
work completes the year. It may be objected that instead of 



Chap. IV.] ARTISTIC CULTURE NOT AIMED AT. 133 

making such an elaborate drawing the student should confine 
himself to details in the usual unshaded style, as in practice 
the finished drawing is rarely used. My answer is that one's 
school training should ahvays go far beyond the demands of 
ordinary practice in order to give that sense of mastership 
Avhich conies from an acquaintance with a larger field than that 
in which work is actually done. One who has once finished a 
drawing, has not only a high ideal, but he has acquired a cer- 
tain judgment of what constitutes appropriateness in a drawing. 
The only thing I would discourage in drawing is the practice 
of methods which appear to be purely arbitrary, for which 
no reasons are given, or which are so dependent on descrip- 
tive geometry, as not to be within the reach of elementary 
students. 

It will be noticed that nowhere do we aim specifically at 
artistic culture. The students are not taught to prefer inac- 
curacy to accuracy because one is made freehand, the other 
Avith the aid of instruments. To be sure, the inaccurate draw- 
ings may involve more skill than the accurate one, and no one 
is more ready to appreciate that than our students, and in so 
far as a drawing gives pleasure by containing evidence of skill, 
they are reasonably quick in their appreciation. A drawing 
whose object is to give pleasure may do so in three ways : 1, by 
Leing intrinsically true, harmonious, and graceful ; and 2d, 
liy its display of skill in its approximations ; and 3d, by a judi- 
cious use of conventionalities. 

I claim that the students who have completed the course I 
liave laid down have an admirable foundation for artistic study 
should they care to cultivate it. 

THE THIRD-YEAR SHOP-WORK. 

The shop arrangements for the third year are by far the 
most elaborate and expensive of all the school apparatus, and 
they will often be beyond the means of many institutions which 
can readily furnish the wood-working shops. Moreover, the 
equipment of the " Machine -Shop " will be likely to vary 
widely from various causes. It will scarcely be possible to 
maintain rigidly uniform and simultaneous exercises. 



134 THE THIRD, OR SENIOR YEAR. [Chap. IV. 

An engraving of a portion of our machine-shop, taken from a 
photograph, is shown in Fig. 123. 

The kinds of tools which are regarded as typical in char- 
acter are : — 

The machinist's vise, heavy and strong. 

The machinist's hammer, and cold chisel, and a set of three 
iiles.i 

The engine lathe, the speed lathe, the planer, the shaper, the 
drill-press, an emery grinder, a grindstone, and a forge for 
dressing and tempering tools. 

There are various excellent patterns of tools, and there is 
a great range of prices. The tools which our experience of 
from four to eight years with several different kinds leads me 
to commend are as follows, with an approximation to their 
cost : — 



Engine Lathe, 14 inch swing, 5 ft. bed, made by the 

Putnam Machine Co., Fitchburg, Mass. 
Planer, 21" — 21" — 60", by same company 
Gooseneck Drill, 25-inch, by same company 

The Shaper 

Speed Lathe, with short iron bed, from 
A Post Drill 



1250 

400 

365 

350 

50 to 80 

40 



The present equipment of the St. Louis school contains six- 
teen engine lathes, six speed lathes,^ two drills, one planer, one 
shaper, two emery-grinders, two grindstones, a gas-forge, and 
about a dozen vises. 

The gas-forge being in use only occasionally, needs no flue. 
The air-blast, which in the St. Louis school is furnished by a 
Westinghouse brake apparatus, may be produced by a foot or, 
hand blower, or by a connection with the forging-shop blast. 

THE CHARACTER OF THE TOOL INSTRUCTION. 

The students have thus far had no experience with metals 
beyond that gained in the forging-shop where heat was the 

i.The cold ch\sels and perhaps the hammers may have been made during the 
second year by the students themselves. 

2 Two of these speed lathes have been made by the third-year class during the 
present year. The details are simple, and with care the boys have been able to 
produce some very good work. 



Chap IV.] 



A SCHOOL MACtJ IN E-SHOP. 



135 



£ g ^ 




136 THE THIRD, OR SENIOR YEAR. [Ohap. IV. 

influence which rendered the stubborn metal tractable and 
subservient to the hammer. Very little was attempted with- 
out heat ; it was the universal solvent. 

Now, however, the metals must be wrought cold. They are 
to be cut with the chisel and file, to be planed, to be turned, 
to be drilled, — in fact, they are to submit to processes very 
similar to those in use in the wood-working shop ; but the 
tools are to be peculiar, and the methods altogether new to 
the boys. 

The steel tools must be strong, well-tempered, forged and 
ground to specified shapes, and correctly adjusted. A failure 
in any one of these respects is a complete failure. 

In the following sketch of the functions of the different tools, 
and the exercises by which those functions are ttiught, no 
attempt is made at exhausting the subject. What I shall say 
will be of value, not to the teacher who should be thoroughly 
familiar with the theory and the use of every machine, but to 
the students themselves and to parents and supervising officers 
in giving a clue to the extent and variety of the exercises. 

I shall take up the tools in a logical order, though it will 
readily be seen that there may be great variety in practice. 

Speed Lathes. 

1. Speed lathes, or " hand " lathes, are used for : (a) Cen- 
tering, (6) Hand-tooling, (c) Polishing. 

(a) Centering consists in pricking, drilling, and counter- 
sinking holes in the ends of a cylindrical piece of metal so that 
it may be firmly supported on the taper centers of the lathe. 
If the piece is irregular, pricks are made by a punch as accu- 
rately as possible, and then the piece is put into the lathe and 
turned by hand. If the adjustment is bad, the side too far 
out is readily found by letting it rub a bit of chalk as it re- 
volves. New pricks are then made till centers sufficiently exact 
are found. The pricked holes are then drilled out by a i inch 
drill to a depth of about three-eighths of an inch, the drill being 
held by a chuck in the lathe, and the piece held by the hand 
against the tail center. The holes are counter-sunk by a similar 
method, the counter-sink having the same taper angle as the 



Chap. IV.] THE OPERATIONS OF LATHES. 137 

lathe centers. The holes are deep enough to escape the points 
themselves. 

Centered pieces when put in a lathe are driven by means of 
a " dog." A " dog " is a ring of metal large enough to fit over 
the end of the centered piece, with a set-screw on one side by 
means of which it grips it firmly, while on the other side it 
has a bent arm which bends back into a face plate which is 
screwed to the spindle. The face plate drives this arm (or 
tail) of the dog, which in turn carries round the piece. 

(5) Hand-tooling consists of shaping a piece in a lathe by 
means of tools held in the hands. It may have been partially 
shaped by machine-held tools. The tools necessarily have long 
handles, and are generally either files, the " round-nose," or the 
>' square-jawed " tools. It is plain that a great variety of tools 
may be used. Formerly a great deal of work was done by 
hand-held tools. As a rule, spherical, and conoidal surfaces, 
with free outlines, are turned by hand; cylinders and cones are 
turned by machine-held tools. See exercises Nos. 2 and 4. 

(c) Polishing is a process by which surfaces are made 

bright and smooth, or by which they are given a " finish." It 

is usually done with loose emery powder and oil applied with 

a fine stick held in the hands, or by emery cloth and oil, the 

stick or the cloth being pressed stoutly against the rapidly 

revolving piece. 

Eiigine Lathes. 

Engine lathes differ from hand lathes in being larger and 
stronger, by having "back-gears," and generally by having 
screw-cutting attachments. Through the courtesy of the Put- 
nam Machine Co. of Fitchburg, Mass., I insert a cut of their 
14-inch lathe as Fig. 124. When a piece of large radius is being 
turned, it should turn very slowly and yet with force enough 
to overcome the resistance of the cutting tool on its extreme 
part. This double result is effected by means of the "back- 
gear," which is readily thrown in and out. By means of the 
cone pulley and the back-gears, a great variety of speeds may 
be obtained tho the counter shaft moves with uniform velocity. 
The student should calculate the method of securing the proper 
speed. 



138 



THE THIRD, OR SENIOR YEAR. 



[Chap. IV. 



The speed with which pieces should turn depends upon the 
diameter of the part under the tool and the hardness of the 
material. The cutting always produces heat, but this heat 
should not be high enough to affect the temper of the cutting 
tool. The usual speed for a cutting tool is from 17 to 19 ft. per 
minute. A tool cutting steel and wrought iron should be well 




Fig. 124. A 14-inch Engine Lathe. 



oiled, while those cutting cast-iron may be dry. The reason is 
that the chips of the former do not break, but bend and slide 
along on the end of the tool more or less, producing heat from 
friction unless oiled. Cast-iron chips break off quickly, so that 
oil is generally unnecessary. A " tap " cutting an internal 
thread should always be oiled no matter what the material, in 
order to diminish the heat of friction. Instead of oil on an 
external tool cutting iron or steel, soda water, or water alone 



Chap IV,] THE THEORIES OF THE TOOLS. 139 

is often used for lubrication (and smoother cuts) and for keep- 
ing the tools cool. The size of a cut depends upon the hardness 
of the piece, the speed of the lathe, the length and strength of 
the tool. Experience is necessary to appreciate these matters. 

The principal tools used in a lathe are the " squaring-up " 
tool, the " diamond-point," the " round-nose," the " thread-cut- 
ting" tools, and the cutting-off or "parting" tool. The shapes 
of these tools are the result of years of practice and experi- 
ment, and their characteristics should be carefully noted. The 
students have already become familiar with their proportions, 
while forging them during the previous year. It is a good plan 
to have a standard set of tools ground to definite dimensions by 
the experts of a first-class shop, and to keep them for compari- 
son only, while dressing and grinding the toals to be used in 
the lathes. 

The teacher will not attempt to explain the entire lathe 
short of several lectures. Its various mechanisms are to be 
shown and their uses illustrated. Cylinders, cones, shoulders, 
right and left V-threaded screws, right and left square-threaded 
screws illustrate the simplest exercises. The feed table may 
generally be driven by a belt, but the cutting of a screw requires 
gears that cannot slip. The class should be shown not only 
how to use the directions attached to the lathe for cutting 
certain numbers of threads per inch, but they should under- 
stand how to select the right gears independently, for any 
number of threads. 

The uses of back-rests, center-rests, mandrels, face-plates and 
chucks are to be shown in succession. The cutting of threads 
in nuts and interior work requires special tools. 

It will soon be evident that though the lathe may be an 
instrument of great precision, good work will not be done 
unless it is intelligently used. The cutting tool and the piece 
to be cut must be mutually adjusted in perfect harmony with 
the theory of the machine or the attempt to use it will be a 
failure. 

No attempt should be made to exhaust the capacity of a 
lathe. The expert will see that I have named but a small part 
of its possible uses. 



140 THE THIRD, OR SENIOR YEAR. [chap. IV, 

The Planer. 

The planer may come next. This tool is used for making 
plane surfaces, for reducing to uniform thickness, for beveling 
and for cutting slots or grooves. The theory of the planer is 
easily presented and very interesting. The methods of adjust- 
ing and clamping the work are most ingenious. The exercises 
on the planer should involve several of its most important 
adjustments. No change of speed is admissible on the planer. 

The Shaper. 

The shaper, or "jumper," as it is often called, is a small 

and rapid planer. • The tools used are the same and their use 

similar ; there is however this difference : in the planer the tool 

is stationary while the work moves ; in the shaper the converse 

is true. In each machine the return motion is more rapid than 

the advance. The construction and use of the shaper are 

readily learned. 

The Drill-Press. 

The drill -press has a large range of work, and is easily under- 
stood. I give a cut of this truly elegant tool in P'ig. 125. Like 
the lathe it has a combination of cone pulleys and back-gears 
for regulating both speed and power. It has both hand and 
power feed and a quick return of the spindle. The small tools 
used in the drill-press are : drills, twist-drills, chucks, boring 
bars, and cutters. The chief difficulty in using the drill con- 
sists in properly supporting or clamping the piece to be drilled 
or bored. A smaller post-drill may be thought sufficient for a 
small shop. 

After general lectures on the planer, shaper, and drill, single 
students are put at each, and are closely watched and instructed 
by the teacher personally. As soon as they are familiar with 
their work, they are set to teach what they know .to a new set 
of boys. Later on these last boys became teachers of a third 
set, and so on till each has become acquainted with the tools 
and has executed the specified exercises ; the supervision re- 
quired from the teacher is thus reduced to a minimum. Mean- 
while the lathes are kept in systematic use. 



Chap. IV.] 



THE GOOSE-NECK DRILL. 



141 



In all machine-work the great practical difficulty lies not in 
the proper adjustment of tools and of work for rigid material, but 




Fig. 125. "Goose-neck Drill," Putnam Machine Company, Kitchburg, Mass. 

it arises from the springing of both tool and work when under 
strain. No tool is so rigid as not to bend, and no piece can be 



142 THE THIRD, OR SENIOR YEAR. [Ohap. IT. 

SO securely clamped or supported as not to yield when subjected 
to pressure, and the yielding is greater for points farther from 
the supports. Hence, pieces which should be long cylinders 
are larger in the middle than at the ends ; screws which easily 
receive nuts at their ends, bind persistently farther down ; and 
so on in various ways. Again, iron and steel are not homoge- 
neous ; cast-iron in particular is full of inequalities. Hard spots 
are found where the tool bends excessively. This may not be 
visible to the eye, but it makes itself known in the case of snug 
fits. The necessity of running the tool over the work a second 
time for the purpose of removing the inequalities due to unequal 
hardness becomes obvious in actual work. Good judgment in 
dealing with these difficulties is the result of intelligent obser- 
vation and continual practice. In no manual training school 
can one expect much practice ; consequently the students cannot 
be expected to have the skill which only practice can give. A 
great deal has been accomplished if the students have seen the 
real nature of the difficulties, and the necessity of a wide expe- 
rience in order to successfully meet them all. The necessity of 
clearance in the care of every cutting tool is very great. In 
the first place it saves unnecessary friction and heat, and in the 
second it saves a great loss of power. The teacher will do well 
to illustrate this important point by the use of tools of improper 
shape, and so show "how not to do it" by developing great 
heat and heavy resistance. 

Bench- Work. 

Bench-work consists in the use of hand-tools at the vise, and 
mainly consists in "chipping" and "filing." Chipping is cut- 
ting with a chisel, usually called a " cold " chisel, as it cuts cold 
metal. Each student should have a chisel properly forged and 
tempered by himself during the previous year. It is possible 
that a hammer may have been made, but as a rule the machin- 
ist's hammer is beyond the skill of a novice, and only good tools 
should be used. Chipping is rather rough work, and very 
moderate exercises should be given. The student should learn 
the difference under the hammer between cast and wrought 
iron, between soft and hard steel. He should know when the 



Chap. IV.] THE NATURE OF BENCH-WORK IN IRON. 143 

chisel may be used to advantage, and when not. Great skill in 
striking should not be aimed at. Great care should however 
be taken to have the chisel in good order and to show its proper 
position for cutting. It is perfectly proper to use a thick, 
leather glove on the left hand ; no useful end is accomplished 
by injuring one's hand by a wild blow of the hammer. 

The chipping exercises may properly consist in taking off cor- 
ners, in chamfering two adjacent edges, in cutting a slot, etc. 

Filing, tho not hard work, requires great patience and atten- 
tion to style. Each exercise given should be brief, and should 
distinctly teach one thing. Filing may relate to quantity or to 
quality. Special shapes may be required, or special surfaces. 
Then there is a great variety of material. It is a great mistake 
to spend a great deal of time in an attempt to do a very difficult 
thing, such as making a set of absolutely plane surfaces, instead 
of having a large range of simple exercises, many of which may 
be executed on the same piece of material. If the student 
knows when each variety of file is to be used, and how to use 
it fairly well, and when the file is in order and when not, when 
to draw a temper before filing, and when to first chip or use a 
drill or planer — he has learned what is far more valuable than 
the experience in a probably futile attempt to make a pair of 
surface plates. 

EXERCISES IN IRON-WGRK. 

The special exercises by means of which the uses of the vari- 
ous tools are to be taught may vary greatly. The following 
list is given, not because they are better than any others, but 
because in our shop many of them have well borne the tests of 
several years' experience. The stock in some of them admits 
of use year after year, the dimensions required being changed, 
until it becomes practically used up. Special reasons may lead 
to modifications, but these exercises will serve well as a basis. 
In the fittings of a wood-turning shop, face-plates are needed, 
and they may very properly take the place of certain lathe 
work in the machine-shop. 



144 



THE THIRD, OR SENIOR YEAR. 



[Chr.p, IV. 



Wo. 1. (Fig. 126.) Plain cylinder. Stock, wrought-iron, one 
inch round, 6| inches long. After it is turned in the engine 
lathe, the piece is filed and polished in the speed lathe. 




No. 2. {Fig. 127.) Taper piece. The stock may be found 
in No. 1. The shoulders .of the chambered part are to be kept 
square, while the head end of the piece is to be turned spherical. 
Turning the taper is one of the most interesting operations, 
of the lathe. 




Fig. 127. 

No. 3. (Fig. 128.) Right- and left-handed screw. Stock 
same as Nos. 1 and 2. The central groove is cut and the ends 
are turned down before the threads are cut. There are ten 




Fig. 128. 



V-threads to the inch. It must be borne in mind that all the 
cutting-tools except the files and drills are made and kept in 
order by the students themselves. 



Chap. IV.] 



MA CHINE- TO OL EXER CISES. 



145 



Ko. 4. (Fig. 129.) Finished handle. Stock If", round 
iron, 4|" long. The handle is approximately formed and the 
thread is cut in the engine lathe. In the speed lathe, by the use 
ofliand tools, the free outline of the handle is obtained, and then 




Fig. 129. 

the main portion is given a high polish. The thread is of the 
standard description, so that the handle might replace one on 
the lathe itself. 

No. 5. [Fig. 130.) Bolts and nuts. The stock consists of 
blank bolts and nuts with an excess of -^" of material on every 
side. Each student makes three of these bolts and three of a 
slightly smaller size. Every surface is to be well finished. 
The threads in the nuts are cut with a tap, and the three nuts 
are put in a common mandrel and planed to the required 
hexagonal form in the "shaper." Errors in the final dimen- 




FiG. 130. 



sions — and of course there will always be errors — are con- 
sidered in the marking of the exercise. 

No. 6. (Fig. 131.) Parallel piece. This involves planing^ 
drilling., chipping., and filing. Stock, cast-iron, a rough block. 
This is planed down very closely to exterior dimensions. The 
outline of the central hole or slot is traced, and holes are drilled 



146 



THE THIRD, OR SENIOR YEAR. 



[Ohap. IV. 




Fig. 131. 



within the line, and the core is taken out by the broach. The 
interior is then chipped out and filed. The planer, the drill- 
press, and vise are employed in this exercise. The aim in filing 

is to produce plane faces 
to the slot, parallel to 
the sides and ends of 
the piece. All the faces 
exterior as well as in- 
terior are to be finished 
by hand. The exercise 
is very difficult. Only 
fair results are to be 
required. The skill of 
an experienced workman 
is not to be expected. 
No. 7. (Fig. 132.) Similar to a valve seat. Planing, chip- 
ping, and filing. This exercise involves some of the preceding, 
with more difficulties in adjusting the piece in the planer. The 
piece is used several 
years in succession. 
Each year the dimen- 
sions of the slots are 
increased, while the 
exterior dimensions are 
diminished. All the 
surfaces worked are to 
be left true and pol- 
ished. The stock to 
begin with was a rough 
iron casting, about 
eight inches long. 

No. 8. Chipping off 
rivets. See Fig. 82 
among the forging ex- 
ercises. Last year the 
student put in these 
six rivets to the best of his ability ; he is now to learn how and 
with what labor they may be cut out and the plates sent back 




Fig. 132. 



Chap. IV.] 



MACHINE-SHOP EXFAICISES. 



147 



to the forging-shop to be re-riveted. With care the drilled 
holes may be left uninjured, and the plates may be used over 
and over again for sev- 
eral years. 

No. 9. The dog. See 
Fig. 90 among the for- 
ging exercises. The main 
shank is now to be cen- 
tered, the head dressed, 
drilled, tapped, and fur- 
nished with a steel set- 
screw with a hardened 
point. The dog will then 
be available for use in the 
lathe. If the supply of 
dogs is ample, a new ex- 
ercise in drilling may be 
substituted. 

No, 10. The pin and 
flanged nut. Fig. 133 
gives two views of the 
pin, and a section of the 
flanged nut. The mate- 
rial is all cast-iron. The 
exercise contains a great 
variety of points, and calls 
into use many tools and 
processes. Both threads 
are cut on the lathe, and 
all surfaces are to be fin- 
islied. It is obvious that 
the pin may be used a 
second time, with less 
dimensions; the flanged nut may be used with a larger pin. 

No. 11. Shaft couplings. Fig. 134 shows how two pieces 
of shafting may be coupled together, and how flanged collars 
and pulleys may be fitted to the same. All except the pieces 
of shafting are shown in section, and four kinds of fitting are 




Fig. 133. 



148 



THE THIRD, OR SENIOR YEAR. 



[Chap. W. 



illustrated. The combined piece is finally finished in the lathe 
as a unit. The disks are usually about five inches in diameter, 

and the whole length is about 
fourteen inches. The flanges are 
of cast-iron, while the shafting is 
wrought-iron. Each of the "fits " 
has a method peculiar to itself, 
and gives opportunity for valuable 
experience. 

In marking the results of this 
work the teacher should deter- 
mine his scale as he goes over 
and explains the work before the 
class, and this scale should be 
fully known and understood by 
the class. Moreover, the work 
should be passed upon at every 
stage. A poor job of lathe-work 
should not be covered or con- 
cealed under a long job of filing 
in the speed lathe ; nor should 
one error in dimensions be can- 
celed by another. The methods 
by which a result is reached 
should be marked as well as the concrete result itself. 




Fig. 134. 



Projects. 

When these exercises are finished, a variety of combination 
pieces may be executed by the members of a class jointly or 
separately. These projects should be carefully matured, detail 
drawings of all the parts should be made, often patterns should 
be made for cast-iron work. Jack-screws, speed lathes, electrical 
apparatus, and small engines furnish abundant and interesting 
work on which to combine the exercises into particular shapes. 
There is great danger, however, of undertaking too much. 

I strongly advise against undertaking work so large that 
much of it has to be done outside in commercial shops. The 
tools I have described and used are small when compared with 



Chap. IV.] THE SCHOOL-SHOP NOT A FACTORY. 149 

those in actual use in large establishments ; and I suggest that 
the class be taken to see large and heavy work done as soon 
as they have had experience in light and easy work. 

My readers will of course observe that I have not tried to 
make a factory out of our school-shop. No defence of my 
course ought to be necessary, but there are so many people 
who. think that the moment we put the theory and use of 
tools into a school curriculum, we must abandon approved edu- 
cational methods and transform the institution into a manufac- 
tory, that I have elsewhere discussed this point at some length. 
I must refer my readers to that discussion in subsequent 
chapters. They may be sure that this discussion forms no part 
of the school proper. 



150 RECORD AND TESTIMONY OF GRADUATES. [Chap. V. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE RECORD AND TESTIMONY OF GRADUATES. 

IN Chapter VIII. I shall give in detail the " Fruits of Manual 
Training," partly a priori., and partly as seen by one actually 
in charge of a manual training school. I now propose to give 
the results as shown by the roster and testimony of our 
graduates. 

I am well aware that I am undertaking a dangerous task. 
In the first place, it is difficult, if not impossible, to tell what is 
and what is not the result of our training. In tlie second place, 
the testimony of graduates is liable to be biased in favor of the 
course they took, on the principle that one should speak well 
of the bridge that brought him over, even if it is a very poor 
bridge. This difficulty I must share with others ; and as my 
graduates are not more prejudiced than the graduates of other 
scliools, their testimony must not be unduly discredited. In 
the third place, the time is all too short for full results to 
appear. I can not point to a long list of worthies who date the 
beginnings of honorable careers with their training here. Our 
oldest graduates left us less than four years ago. But I am 
willing to trust the future. Such testimony as I can give is 
submitted with confidence and a desire to be both frank and 
fair. 

The following circular letter will explain how I went about 
my investigation : — 

Manual Training School, St. Louis, July 25, 1886. 

Dear Sir, — In a book soon to be published, I desire to give as fully as 
possible the statistics of the graduates of the Manual Training School for 
the purpose of showing (so far as such things can be shown at this time) 
the results of the training afforded by the school. No names will be used 
in my analysis of these statistics, so 1 hope you will write with the utmost 



Chap, v.] CIRCULAR ADDRESSED TO GRADUATES. 151 

frankness. I wish to get at the truth both when it makes against our 
school and when it makes for it. If I quote from your letter I shall not 
give your name, though your classmates may be able to infer it. 
I wish to know : — 

1. Your address and the precise nature of your present or prospective 
occupation ; and if employed, how you are classed on your employer's books. 

2. If employed, your present (or recent) wages per month or year. 

3. How your position and pay compare with those of other young men of 
your age in the same or similar establishments. 

4. What you now think of your training at this school ; its good points, 
its deficiences, its advantages, and its disadvantages. 

5. Under what circumstances would you, or your parents, or your em- 
ployer advise a young man to come to this school. 

6. What your employer or immediate superior thinks of the result of 
your school training ; as to general intelligence ; habits of promptness and 
precision ; as to skill of any kind ; as to ability to understand what is new, 
and to do as you are directed ; as to your ability to bear responsibility, and 
to direct others; as to your ingenuity; as to your defects and failings; as to 
your manners and general habits. Would he be disposed or not to give the 
preference to a graduate of this school, were he in want of a new clerk, 
assistant, draughtsman or apprentice workman, from eighteen to twenty 
years of age. 

I suggest that you answer the first five questions yourself in a carefully 
written letter to me, and that you then place this circular in the hands of 
that one who can best reply to questions 5 and 6. 

Wishing you the highest success, I remain your friend, 

C. M. WOODWARD, 

Director. 

I shall first give as fully as I can the present occupations of 
my students ; this will show their positions in society. Sec- 
ondly, I shall give the average monthly wages of those who are. 
earning money. Thirdly, I shall give extracts from the letters 
I have received in response to my circular. And here let me 
add, that in all this I evidently 'pwi my best foot foremost. 
The unsuccessful graduates are not likely to answer my letter, 
and though it would be manifestly unfair to assume that those 
who have not responded have nothing favorable to report, it 
is unquestionably true that those who have not wi-itten me 
would make on the average a poorer showing than that given 
below. How is it with the records of graduates of other 
schools ? 



152 RECORD AND TESTIMONY OF GRADUATES. [Chap. T. 

THE OCCUPATIONS OF GRADUATES. 
Class of 1883. 

Henry H. Bauer, Farmer, Dorchester, 111. 

John Boyle, Jr., B.E.^ Fifth-year student in Mining Engineering, Wash- 
ington University. 

John L. Bryan, Head Turner in Pipe Works, Washington, Mo. 

Alex. W. Buchanan, Student in Mechanical Engineering, Cornell University. 

Peyton T. Carr, Clerk, Office of Insurance Commissioner. 

Edward E. Davidson, Partner in Real Estate Business, St. Paul, Minn. 

Cornelius V. De Jong, Machinist. 

Harry Deitrich, Machinist, Draughtsman, Patternmaker, etc., Brass Foun- 
dry, St. Louis. 

William S Dodd, Collector, Laclede Gas Works, St. Louis. 

Henry F. Dose, Student, University of Illinois. 

Wm. J. Downton, Architect's Office. 

Theo. Gluck, Senior Class in Mining Engineering, Washington University. 

S. D. Hayden, Clerk in Southeastern Railway Office. 

Robert L. Hyatt, Farmer, St Louis County. 

Conrad S. Ittner, Jr., Bricklayer. 

Wm. B. Ittner, Student in Architecture, Cornell University. 

Albert L. Johnson, Senior Class, Civil Engineering, Washington University. 

Wm. Love, Assistant Engineer, Missouri Pacific Railway. 

Harry W. Lytance. 

Robert H. McMath, B.E., with Adolphus Meier & Co., St. Louis. 

Otto L. Mersman, Merchant, St. Louis. 

Wm. G. Nixon, Clerk, Supply Department, Iron Mountain Railway. 

Everett G. Phillips, Engineer and Shoemaker, St. Louis. 

Wm. K. Roth, Grocer, St. Louis. 

Justus W. Schmidt, Draughtsman, Architect's Office. 

Greenfield Sluder, Medical Student. 

Jules C. Smith, Machinist. 

Herbert Taylor, Salesman, Simmons Hardware Co. 

John P. Thul, Senior Class, Dynamic Engineering, Washington University. 

John F. Valle, Clerk in Commission House. 

Class of 1884. 
Grant Beebe, Senior Class, Dynamic Engineering, Washington University. 
A. Theo. Bruegel, Senior Class, Mechanical Engineering, Lehigh University. 
Geo. R. Carothers, Principal Technical School, Cincinnati, Ohio. 
Walter R. Coles, Clerk, with John Coles & Co. 

1 The degree of B.E., Bachelor of Engineering, is at present given at the 
end of the fourth year of the Engineering Courses in Washington University. 
Since this chapter was prepared for the press, Mr. Boyle has taken the full pro- 
fessional degree of " Mining Engineer." 



Chap, v.] OCCUPATIONS OF GRADUATES. 153 

Claude N. Comstock, Senior Class, Civil Engineering, Columbia College, N.Y. 
Geo. D. Eaton, Assistant, High School, Marine, 111. 
Alfred C. Einstein, Stenographer, St. Louis & San Francisco Railway. 
Hamilton R. Gamble, Clerk wholesale Drug-store. 
Charles D. Grayson, Practical Mailer, St. Louis. 
Geo. N. Hinchnian, Jr., Draughtsman in Office of Patent-Lawyer. 
Ernest C. Klipstein, Draughtsman, Real Estate Office. 
Charles A. Langdon, Clerk. 

James L. Marks, Machinist, Shops Mo. Pac. Ry., St. Louis. 
Constant Mathey, Salesman with Mermod, Jaccard & Co. 
Alexander D. Mermod, Ranchman, Poncha Park, Col. 

Ralph H. Miller, Superintendent, Toledo Manual Training School, Toledo, O. 
George S. Mills, Teacher of Drawing, Toledo Manual Training School. 
William O'Keefe, Shipping Clerk of Machineiy. 

Otto H. Olfe, Draughtsman and Superintendent, with W. E. Bent, Archi- 
tect, St. Louis. 
Harry M. Pflager, Head Draughtsman, Pullman Car Works, St. Louis. 
John H. Pope, Senior Class in Civil Engineering, Washington University. 
Edward L. Pretorious, Clerk, Business Department Westliche Post, St. Louis. 
Wm. F. Richards, Clerk in Office of Vandalia Railroad. 
Harry C. Scott, Clerk in Railroad Office. 
Percy S. Silver, Manufacturer, Lexington, Mo. 
Charles F. Springer, Merchant, Chicago. 

H. Reed Stanford, Senior Class, Civil Engineering, Washington University. 
Homer Wise, Foreman, Collier Lead and Oil Works, St. Louis. 
Edmund H. Wuerpel, Student of Drawing and Architecture. 
Harry B. Wyeth, Junior Class, Michigan University. 

Class of 1885. 

Wm. F. Barnes, Teacher Manual Training School, Eau Claire, Wis. 

Hatcher Bates, Farmer, Mo. 

A. M. Bumann, Teacher Manual Training, Omaha High School, Neb. 

King Charles Barton, Assistant, Smelting and Refining Works, Omaha, Neb. 

Judson S. Bemis, with Bemis Brothers Bag Co. 

Edgar L. Brother, Teacher Manual Training, Swathmore College, Penn. 

Thomas W. Booth, St. Louis, Law Student. 

Albert H. Buck, Draughtsman, American Brake Co., St. Louis. 

Edward H. Chapman, Farmer. 

Frederick A. Chouteau, Teacher Manual Training, Swathmore College, Penn. 

Geo. W. Danforth, Cadet U. S. Naval Academy, Annapolis. 

H. G. Ellis, Assayer, Gunnison, Col. 

•Arthur Feickert, Baker, Belleville, 111. 

Charles O. Fischer, Office of Civil Engineer. 

Wm. F. Hopper, Apprentice, Stove and Machine Pattern-making, St. Louis. 

Clarence H. Howard, General Foreman, Motive Power, Mo. Pac. Ry. 



154 RECORD AND TESTIMONY OF GRADUATES. [chap. Y. 

H. F. S. Kleinscyiraidt, in charge of Manual Training School, Denver 
University, Denver, Col. 

Albert Koberle, Student, Junior Class, Washington University. 

Wni. P. Laing, Machinist, St. Louis. 

Edward L. Lange, Clerk, Hardware Store. 

Ernest E. Lazar, Machinist, Baldridge Type Writing Co. 

Louis D. Lawnin, Clerk, N. O. Nelson Manufacturing Co. 

Edward H. Lebens, Student, Junior Class, Washington University. 

John J. Lichter, Jr., Student, Junior Class, Washington University. 

Wm. Alex. Magee, Practical Electrician. 

Frank W. Morse, Foreman, Wabash Repair Shops, St. Louis. 

Frank E. Nulsen, with Missouri Malleable Iron Foundry Co, St. Louis, 

Geo. R. Olshausen, Student, Junior Class, Washington University. 

Charles M. Parker, Student, Junior Class, Troy Polytechnic Institute. 

Frank E. Reel. 

Louis C. Rohlfing, Medical Student. 

Edward H. Rottman, Stenographer in Hardware Store. 

James L. Sloss, Student. 

Edward Smith, Lumber Business. 

Geo. M. Stedman, General Foreman, Machine and Foundi'y Works, Aurora, Ind, 

J. Harrison Steedman, Student, Junior Class, Washington University. 

Hamilton W. Stone, Bookkeeper and Draughtsman, Heating and Venti- 
lating Co., St. Louis. 

Wm. T. Treadway, Machinist, Mo. Pac. Shops, St. Louis. 

Harry L. Whitman, in business with his father. 

Charles H. Wright, Teacher of Manual Training, Denver, Col. 

Summary of Occupations. 

Students (engineering, law, and medicine) ..... 25 

Clerks (in banks, railway offices, manufactories, etc.) ... 23 

Teachers (generally of manual training) .10 

Draughtsmen (with architects, manufacturers, etc.) ... 9 

Machinists 6 

Artisans (pattei-n-maker, bricklayer, shoemaker [with power ma- 
chine], molder, and electrician) 5 

Farmers and Ranchmen 5 

Business Men 4: 

Foremen (of railway shops and lead and oil works) .... 4 

Engineers ^ (mechanical and civil) 2 

Manufacturers . . . . j, 2 

Baker . 1 

Unknown 2 

1 The small number of engineers is due to the fact that the additional study 
and training necessary for an accomplished civil, mining, or mechanical engi- 
neer, extends over four Qifive more years, and there has nofrbeen time to complete 
such courses. 



Chap. V.J 



BECOBD OF CHICAGO GRADUATES. 



155 



GRADUATES OF THE CHICAGO MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. 

I take the liberty of adding to this list an extract from the 
recently issued catalogue of the Chicago Manual Training 
School. It shows, as well as do the records just given, how 
sharp an appetite for severe study a student has on leaving a 
manual training school. 



Graduates, 1886. 

NAME. 

MoRiTZ William Boehm, 
Stuart Dunlevy Boynton, 
Gary Nathan Calkins, 
Allan Montgomery Clement, 
Charles Locke Etheridge, 
William Henry Fahrney, 
Samuel Douglas Flood, 
Arthur Dewey Hall, 
Philip Harvey, 
Charles Williams Hawkes, 
Charles Gilbert Hawley, 
John Porter Heywood, 
Harley Seymour Hibbard, 
Samuel Edward Hitt, 
Elbridge Byron Keith, 
Henry William Klare, 
Robert Allan Lackey, 
Joseph Dixon Lewis, 
James Stuart McDonald, Jr., 
Charles Messer, 
William Otis Moody, 
OviNGTON Ross, 
Albert Scheible, 
Herman Schifflin, 
Emil Henry Seemann, 
Henry Heileman Wait, 
Oliver Johnson Westcott, 



OCCUPATION. 

•with Crane Bros. Elevator Co. 

Teacher of Drawing, Evening High SchooL 



Mass. Institute of Technology, 
with Clement, Bane, & Co., Mnfrs. 
Sibley College, Cornell University. 
Chicago College of Pharmacy. 
Mass. Institute of Technology, 
with St. Nicholas Toy Unig. Co. 

with Crane Bros. Elevator Co. 

Sibley College, Cornell University. 

Mass. Institute of Technology. 

with W. L. B. Jenney, Architect. 

Sibley College, Cornell University. 

Beloit College. 

Reedy Elevator Works. 

with Wm. Sooy Smith & Co., Civil Engrs. 

with N. K, Fairbank & Co., Mnfrs. 

Ass't Sup't McDonald-Lawson Mfg. Co. 



with George P. Ross, Mnfr. 

School of Mech. Eng , Purdue Univ. 

with Eraser & Chalmers, Mnfrs. 

with Frederick Seemann, Mnfr. 

Hyde Park High School. 

with A. Gottlieb & Co., Civil Engineers. 



156 RECORD AND TESTIMONY OF GRADUATES. [chap, Y. 

MONTHLY WAGES,^ OR THE PRACTICAL MEASUREMENT OF 
THEIR BREAD-WINNING AND HOME-MAKING POWER. 

Class of 1883. 

Twenty-two out of twenty-nine are in business, or have been 
earning regular wages. The average rate of such wages 
according to all the answers I have received is sixty-eight 

DOI*LARS A MONTH. 

Class of 1884 . 

The number known to me to be earning regular wages is 
twelve. The average rate of their wages is seventy-eight 

DOLLARS A MONTH. 

Class of 1885. 

Fourteen out of the thirty-nine of this class have been earn- 
ing money at the average rate of seventy dollars per month. 

The average ages of the three classes in July, 1886, was 
twenty-one, twenty, and nineteen years respectively. 

EXTRACTS from LETTERS. 

I must quote sparingly from my long file of interesting let- 
ters. For convenience I will number them as I take them up. 
Before reading the extracts, please re-read the circular. 

No. 1 is engaged in mechanical work. 

" Too high an estimate can not be placed upon the value of the method, 
ejtactness, and confidence which the student acquires by studying and care- 
fully working out step by step the progressive course of study and practice. 
. . . My parents, my employers, and I would all join in advising a young 
man under all circumstances to attend a manual trainins; school." 



1 Prof. Ripper of Sheffield, England, thus speaks of the experience of one who 
evidently was a pupil in his manual trainiiig school. "A gentleman recently 
sent his son to a steel works in Sheffield on trial for a month. He had not been 
there long when his master set him to make a working drawing, from a sketch, 
for a steel casting. The boy had been taught machine drawing at school, and to 
liis employer's astonishment, the drawing made was not only just what was 
wanted, but, as the manufacturer said, it was much superior to the drawings he 
had been in the habit of getting. This, of course, increased the value of the boy's 
labor at once, thanks to the instruction he received at school. And yet how few 
schools there are which send their pupils forth equipped in any such way. 



Chap, v.] GRADUATES SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES. 157 

No. 2 is himself, tho still very young, a foreman of a large 
system of railway shops. I quote not what he says of himself, 
but what he says of other boys in his employ. 

" As an employer, I will say for several of the Manual Training School 
boys I have working for me, that they will in one year accomplish as much as 
the ordinary boy (who has not received the training the Manual Training 
School gives) will in three. For example, I have two boys working side by 
side, one from the school, and the other an uneducated boy ; the former has 
been working here nine months, while the latter has been here over three 
years ; and to-day the boy from school will do better, cleaner, neater, quicker 
work by far than the other boy. One boy learns the trade by imitation, 
while the other lesU'ns it by reason and study. The boy from the school is 
more precise and neat about his work, grasps a new idea more readilj', looks 
upon new features of the business with greater intelligence, and is better 
able to direct others and to bear responsibilities. He has better command 
of language and can impart to others the ideas he wishes them to obtain. 
When a difficult point arises, the school boy will labor with it until he con- 
quers it, while the other boy will study a while, then give it up. Were I to 
need a clerk, apprentice, or draughtsman, I would and do give the Manual 
Training School boys the preference, because I get much better results with 
less trouble." 

No. 3 is a teacher of manual training. 

" I believe that the course in your school, as it was when I was there, and 
as I suppose it is now, was more than what it claimed to be, and accom- 
plished all its aims, as far as I can see. I know that it opened up more 
than one path for a future for me, in congenial pursuits where all was blank 
before." 

No. 4. This is evidently a " cow-boy " of the better sort, and 
he writes from his ranch in Poncha Park. 

" I have not regretted going to the Manual Training School, for it is help- 
ing me a good deal. The knowledge I derived in the blacksmith shop has 
stood me in good stead, for on the ranch we do all our own iron-work as 
well as wood-work. We have a blacksmith shop and do all our horse-shoe- 
ing, though we did not learn to shoe horses at the Manual Training School. 
I would advise any boy who does not intend taking a classical education to 
go to the Manual Training School. I think my parents would answer the 
same way. As to my employer, 1 don't suppose he gives it a thought one 
way or the other. Out here every one thinks and talks of nothing but cattle." 

No. 5 finds use for his training, tho not a mechanic. 

" Every day I am required to put into use some of the knowledge or 
methods learned in the shops, and I think I should be utterly at sea with- 



158 RECORD AND TESTIMONY OF GRADUATES. [chap. V. 

out that training. The third year, both in the schoolroom and the shops, 
is of course by far the most valuable, and is the culmination toward which 
the rest of the course tends. You can not too strongly urge upon students 
the necessity of the graduating year." 

No. 6. A student of the class of '84, noAV at Lehigh Univer- 
sity, writes that during the Sophomore year the only difference 
between the course in civil and that in mechanical engineer- 
ing lay in the study of "surveying" by the former, and the 
study of the " steam engine " by the latter. He took survey- 
ing as an "extra," and the steam engine as a "regular," and 
was the only student in a class of eighty-one who did so. At 
the end of the year his general standing was twelfth in a total 
of 131 Sophomores, and he stood first in both s^irveying and steam 
engine. He attributes his success to his excellent preparation. 

No. 7. Designer and head draughtsman, Pullman car-shops, 
St. Louis. I greatly prize his suggestions. 

"The advantages of the school are inestimable. ... I receive a higher rate 
of wages than other boys in the same establishment. I would recommend 
that more attention be paid [at school] to pen-shading of concave and convex, 
and ogee surfaces, and also to sections and details of all kinds, so that one 
of your graduates may go into any shop and read any working drawing; 
also, that they receive a few lessons in perspective." 

No. 8 is from a graduate of one year ago. 

" I have a better position now than young men that have been in the 
same shops for three years, and I receive more pay." 

No. 9 is from a graduate twent}'" years old, who is a stenog- 
rapher in the office of a railway company. 

"I consider my training at the Manual Training School as being indis- 
pensable to myself, and do not see how a young man of a mechanical, 
mercantile, literary, or even any professional turn of mind, can consider his 
education completed, or be satisfied with it, without having had at least a 
taste of manual training. ... In every-day life, it makes no difference 
what the profession or occupation of one may be, something will turn up, 
where the training, such as I received at the Manual Training School, will 
become essential to the success, advancement, and improvement of a young 
man." 

No. 10 is from a young man in the Junior class in dynamic 
engineering. Of his vacation work he says : — 



Chap, v.] A SHOEMAKER AND A P BIN TEE. 159 

"During last summer I received $2.50 per day when I was drawing and 
$2.00 when I worked at the Exposition. At the latter place I was learning 
to put up pipe-work." 

One of the most valuable results of manual traininsc he thinks 
is: — 

"The habit of systematic work ; I mean the habit of laying a definite plan 
before starting upon a piece of work or action." 

The mother of No. 10 and of a graduate in the last class 
writes, speaking of a third son who did not take the Manual 
Training School course : " I now think that it would have been 
to his advantage to have taken the course in the Manual." 

No. 11 shows that tho we have no leather work in the school 
our training is not lost on a shoemaker of the modern sort. 

"I am running a petroleum engine and a heel-trimming machine at a 
shoe factory, . . . I receive $18.00 per week. . . . I consider the training I 
received at the Manual Training School almost indispensable ; in fact, it is 
what gave me my present situation." 

No. 12 is a young man who learned all that was to be learned 
in the printer's trade and then went into the counting-room of 
a daily newspaper. His father, the editor and proprietor, thus 
writes : — 

" I assure you with great pleasure, that I would send as many boys to 
your school as I could possibly control in that respect. Judging from expe- 
rience I feel satisfied the training there benefits them not only in point of 
general intelligence, but as to promptness, skill, and all other particular 
points alluded to in your circular, equally as well." 

No. 13 is from another Junior student in civil engineering. 
He thus speaks of his vacation work and of his preparation for 
the university : — 

•' At present, rather than be idle, T am engaged running an engine on a 
derrick boat at 15 cents per hour. I tend to both the boiler and the engine, 
and have sole charge with the exception of a foreman who looks in about 
once a day. During the past vacation and holidays, when there was any 
work, I was employed by an architect to line and fill in plans and elevations, 
receiving S2. 50 per day. . . . As a preparatory school for the university, the 
course has one disadvantage in my opinion, and that is, it is too thorough 
and comprehensive for the Freshman year, thereby lessening the pleasure 
and enjoyment of its studies, while it is not advanced enough for the 
Sophomore class." 



160 RECORD AND TESTIMONY OF GRADUATES. [Chap. V. 

His employer thus writes of him : — 

" A young and energetic boy has worked in my office during vacation 
and holidays, and his knowledge and quick perception in mechanism and 
drawing are wonderful. Practical knowledge is the road to success." 

No. 14 says : — 

" I am employed as rodman on the White River Branch Extension of the 
Missouri Pacific Railroad. My wages are $45.00 per month, and I do not 
know as my manual training school education places me on any better 
footing than other young men, except as it may have taught me to swing an 
axe. This is a heavily wooded country, and on construction there ai"e a. 
good many stakes to make and drive. I think very highly of my manual 
training school training. It has given me an insight into many things 
I never would have thought of or investigated. The only disadvantage I 
have found is, that when you tell people that you are a graduate, they im- 
agine you are a competent mechanic, and are disappointed when you inform 
them of the facts. 

" I would advise any young man to go to the school, who was going to 
study any branch of engineering, or who wanted to be a mechanic. I think 
it would be a fine thing for him, if he expected to rise in his trade." 

No. 15 is a successful teacher of manual training. His 
salary the present year is $1,050. He thus writes : — 

"I think my training at your school is the best I could have received, as 
the combination of work is such that I have received an insight into the 
most prominent trades ; and it has placed me in a position to judge intelli- 
gently what trade I would like to follow for a livelihood. It has made me 
self-reliant, and I feel that I could easily learn any trade, if I should go at 
it in the systematic order that we followed in our school-work." 

He then proceeds to criticise our drawing, and adds : — 

"My plan for drawing would be to have it more closely connected with 
the shop-work, and to' have each scholar learn the fundamental rules of 
drawingyand not have the teacher do so much work for the students." 

My readers may be sure that I attach great weight to this 
suggestion, though there is little occasion for such criticism 
now. Of this young man the city school superintendent writes 
as follows : — 

" I do not hesitate to pronounce Mr. B. manly, intelligent, prompt, pre- 
cise, skillful in his work, competent to direct it, winning the confidence of 
his employers, and the respect of his pupils. He has far surpassed our 



Chap, v.] DOES WORK OUT OF THE ORDINARY LINE. 161 

expectations. ... I have believed that the manly qualities vi^hich Mr. B. 
seems to possess in an eminent degree have been greatly strengthened by 
the course of training he received in your school." 

No. 16 is a boy who is employed in a brass shop and foundry. 
His experience is a capital illustration of the general value of 
our training. 

" The principal part of my work is the making of wood and brass pat- 
terns and core-boxes, and keeping them in order ; I also do the greater part 
of the drawing for the shop; but I am by no means limited to these, as, for 
the last three or four days of each rnonth, I am called to help get work out, 
and to help Mr. Jones figure, etc. I have also done a little tool-work, such 
as tm-ning, milling, hardening, and tempering cock-reamers, and taps. I 
also have made a few cutters for a monitor lathe. / usually (jet the ivork that 
IS out of the ordinary line. . . . Since writing the above I have asked my 
employer his opinion [of the school training]. His answer is almost the 
same as mine, with the addition that the instruction received so broadens 
the mind, that a student's selection of an occupation is apt to be more intel- 
ligent. He says if he wanted an assistant, draughtsman, or an apprentice 
he would most emphatically select one from the Training School." 

Ko. 17, who is engaged in building, heating, etc., says : — 

"My prospects, present and future, are favorable, with a good bank 
account and no debts. I never enjoyed a school more, or felt more improved 
by one. I think the ' Training School ' helped me in many ways. Before 
I went there, I took no interest in improvements, such as buildings, machin- 
ery, locks, drawings, etc.; but now every thing of that kind interests me." 

No. 18 is manly and kind. I see in what he says a criticism 
of the right sort, and I am willing that my readers should see 
it too. 

" As to my general training at the school I can say nothing less, so far as 
I am now able to see, than that it is proving to be of inestimable value, 
not only in familiar subjects, but in subjects radically new. Its advantages 
are in being perfectly general, and fitting for almost any occupation. I have 
thus far been unable to see any disadvantages. What I consider of great 
importance is the matter of every-day English composition ; and though I 
do not deem our graduates deficient in this respect, yet I think that addi- 
tional work might be done in that direction, to great advantage. Letters 
from my classmates urge me to make this remark." 

No. 19 is from a student taking a literary course in a uni- 
. versity, preliminary to the study of law. He says : — 



162 RECORD AND TESTIMONY OF GRADUATES. [ohap. 7. 

" I find myself greatly retarded by my ignorance of the classics, espe- 
cially Latin, which was not taught in the school when my class graduated." 

Latin is now taught two years of the course. He adds : — 
" When I entered I was rather weak, and my head was in advance of my 
body. The work at the school developed my body, and gave to my mind a 
clearer and more practical view of things. If a person intends taking an 
engineering course, I should advise him to go through the Manual Training 
School by all means. To a person intending to go into business, I think the 
training secured by the combination of mental and manual labor is almost 
invaluable. I have a brother who intends to go into business, and I expect 
him to apply for admission to the school this fall." 

No. 20 is still a student of engineering. 

"In reply to your circular of the twenty-fifth, I wish to say, that the 
instructions which I received at the Manual Training School have been of 
great benefit to me, inasmuch as I am able to judge of the quality of work 
which I see, as well as to do some work myself. I have never worked steadily 
for any one man, for the reason that there has always been work enough 
about the house and in the neighborhood to keep me busy during vacation. 

" My work all along has been of the nature of odd jobs at carpentering. 
In this way I have been able to earn, on an average, $2.00 a day for every 
day that I worked. 

" The instructions in drawing combined with the work in the machine- 
shop enabled me, by the time I had finished the course, to understand the 
general construction of such machinery as I saw, and at the same time to 
form some idea of the way in which those parts which are hidden from view 
might be constructed. To one who desires to learn a profession in which 
construction is an important feature, such a course would be very beneficial; 
for by knowing the different methods by which an article can be made, it 
seems to me that he will be enabled to so do his designing as to avoid all 
unnecessary complications, and consequently have his designs worked easily 
and cheaply." 

No. 21 made the dynamo that lights his house. 

"My training at the Manual has given me a foundation from which to 
work. I have now a very nice shop in good running order; I have a four- 
horse power engine (which I built myself), and two lathes and a grindstone, 
running almost every day, while myself and bi'others work in the shop. I 
think that every boy, no matter what calling he intends to pursue, should 
have some such training as we got at the Manual." 

This young man adds, that unfortunately 

" The average boy when he graduates from the Manual has far too good an 
opinion of his abilities. The public also very often overestimates the 



Chap, v.] FIRST BRICKLAYER, THEN ARCHITECT. 163 

amount of training which one gets there. They think that he is a finished 
mechanic." 

I have no doubt such is the case. As to the conceit, I am 
not sure that our graduates are much better off than graduates 
of other schools. We try to cultivate modesty, and to show 
the boys the vast amount of their ignorance. 

As to the estimate strangers place upon our work, that will 
right itself in time. 

No. 22 is a student of architecture at Cornell University. 
He says : — 

" After leaving the Training School I went to work at the bricklaying 
trade. I had worked at it during vacation, while attending the Training 
School. It took me altogether about two years to learn my trade, the 
regular apprenticeship being four years. I attribute the aptness with which 
I learned my trade to the excellent training received at the Manual Training 
School. During my last year at the trade I received full wages, $4.50 per day. 

" I think the course of study at the Manual Training School a splendid 
thing ; and I would advise every young man, no matter what his occupation 
in after life may be, to avail himself of the opportunity of such an education, 
if it is in his power. It enables one to better understand the doings and 
workings of our scientific world, and at the same time, it brings with it an 
appreciation of good workmanship and skill in the use of tools." 

No. 23 was a farmer's boy; now he is teaching shop-work and 
drawing. 

" I think that I have an insight into the care, use, and abuse of tools and 
machinery, so that I could or would be more likely to get a position in a 
shop, or begin business for myself. Most of my knowledge of tools I got 
there at school, for I had touched not even a jack-plane before I went there. 
A good point is, that it gives a broader education, and makes a ti'ue feeling 
for honest labor and good workmanship wherever you see it." 

His father adds : — - 

"A farmer's boy, after going through that school, can mend and make 
many things that would have to be taken to a machine-shop, or can see 
what is the matter with a machine that is out of order. Nowadays a 
farmer must have a good understanding- of tools and machinery, we have to 
use so much of them. If I was going to hire a man, I would sooner have a 
graduate of the Manual Training School." 

No. 24 is evidently well pleased with his prospects. 
" My position and pay rank far above those of other young men in similar 
business." 



164 RECORD AND TESTIMONY OF GRADUATES. [Chap. V. 

No. 25. This young man is an Illinois farmer. 

" I am married, and have a little boy ; and if he lives, and I can afford it^ 
he shall go through the entire course of the Manual Training School. By 
this you may infer what my ideas are as to the advantage of manual train- 
ing over commercial or" common high schools. I have been putting my 
money into stock and farming implements, although I have good reason to 
believe that I make as much or more money than my neighbors, some of 
whom are old and experienced farmers ; not that I raise better crops or 
work harder ; but that I have saved and am saving a good many dollars 
which they give to carpenters, blacksmiths, or wagon-makers, for repair- 
work, which I do myself, with the skill I obtained while at school. As soon 
as I move, I expect to fix me a blacksmith and carpenter shop, and increase 
my present incomplete set of tools, with which I expect to do all of my own 
and part of my neighbors' repair-w6rk, which will be a great saving in 
money and time." 

No. 26 is with a gas company. He began at the bottom. 

" My wages are f 66.66| per month, $800.00 per year. I consider my train- 
ing at the school of the greatest benefit to me, as I think that my knowledge 
of tools, besides my learning in the three R's, was what helped me to get my 
place as inspector. I used what knowledge I had of tools to the advantage 
of the company, especially that of blacksmithing ; but my machine-work 
and carpentry come in handy now and then. If I had not given satisfaction 
down-stairs, I would never have been up-staii's." 

No. 27 is making himself valuable to the lawyers. 

" In December, 1885, I commenced in the drawing room at $5.00 a week. 
I worked hard to make myself valuable, and in two months and a half I re- 
ceived $6.20, and very soon after that $7.25 per week. In May, 1886, I was 
offered a situation with my present employers as di'aughtsman at $50.00 a 
month, and after due considei'ation I accepted the same. When I informed 
my former employers of my intentions, they wanted to know if I would 
remain with them at $50.00 a month; but I had accepted this place, so I 
had to refuse. My work with this firm is making all the plats for certifi- 
cates, examinations, and abstracts of land-titles, as well as entering in our 
plat-books all the subdivisions and additions recorded in the court-house. 

" I can not well compare myself or my salary with any one in the office, 
since I am by many years the youngest in the office, and most of our clerks 
are lawyers. Should I ever be fortunate enough to have a son, and be able 
to send him there, he shall certainly go to the Manual Training School." 

I could quote much more fully and from many more, but 
these must suffice. The attendance in our school of younger 



Chap. V,] AN INVENTOR AND DESIGNER. 165 

brothers and friends of graduates is the best commentary on 
our work. 

It is possible that some one may think, after seeing for himself 
some of the fruits of manual training, that I have overstated 
their value ; that I have colored my picture too highly. But 
I have tried to be fair. Often have people, who have read my 
reports or heard my addresses, said to me, after actually seeing 
the school at work, "It is much better and larger and finer 
than I expected." I am thus led to believe that I am not in 
the habit of exaggerating. 

A word more. About half the boys who attend the school 
get less than the whole course. For a great variety of reasons 
they drop out. A much larger per cent of such boys become 
mechanics than of the graduates. I have had many excellent 
reports from and concerning them. But I have not kept the 
reports on file. 

Since writing the above, I have received a letter, which is 
good enough to cause me to open the case once more. I give 
all but the formal beginning and end of the letter. The writer 
was a graduate in the year 1883. His record was that of a 
good, careful student, not brilliant, but on the contrary so slow 
as to cause him at times to appear dull. He entered this pipe- 
factory soon after leaving school ; and one of the first things I 
heard about him was, that he had invented and made a new tool, 
by which he had been able to outstrip the old hands who had 
been turning for years. 

No. 28. He now says : — 

" My work is that of turning all kinds of fancy and common parts of the 
corn-cob pipe, and I am classed on my employer's books as 'head turner.' 
My present or recent wages per month are from f 60. 00 to $90 00, depending 
on the kind of work given me ; while other turners draw from $40.00 to 
^65.00 per month. I hold the best position in the house, next to the fore- 
man, and average about flO.OO or $20.00 a month more than men of my 
age in the establishment. 

" My training at the Manual Training School has been of great benefit to 
me many times, and in many places. I have made drawings for machines, 
designs [for pipes], patterns, tools, and machines of different kinds. Other 
positions have been offered me, but as I have a mother and three sisters to 
care for, I preferred to stay in Washington [Mo.]. 



166 RECORD AND TESTIMONY OF GRADUATES. [Chap. V. 

" Mr. K , one of the managers, told me the other day, they expected to 

make me foreman after Jan. 1, 1887; a very good position, paying from 
1125.00 to $150.00 per month. 

" I would advise any young man to attend the Manual Training School, if 
he wishes to be constantly employed and make good wages. If he wants to 
be an engineer, let him attend that school before entering the polytechnic. 

"Enclosed please find Messrs. H. T. & Co.'s answer to question six." 

The letter from the firm, addressed to him, is entire as fol- 
lows : — 

Dear Sir, — With pleasure we answer question six of circular submitted 
to us by you. 

Your position you owe to your training at the Manual Training School. 
Our oft-repeated consultation regarding new shapes or styles of goods would 
show that your "ability to understand what is new " was duly appreciated by 
this firm. 

Yes, if all the graduates of the Manual Training School showed such 
intelligence, promptness, and precision as we found in you, we would cer- 
tainly give such graduates a preference. 

Respectfully yours, 
[Signed] H. T. & Co. 

Will some one complain that these young men have no high 
ideals? that they do not quote classic examples of patriotism 
and devotion to lofty aims and high arts? Will it be asserted 
that their ideas of life are unpoetic, materialistic, limited to good 
wages and methods of " getting on " in the world ? If so, I 
shall say in reply, I am willing to trust the future for evi- 
dence of right and noble living. My confidence would be less, 
if they talked more about it. 

I claim (and this is what this chapter is written for) that 
these young men are well fitted to exhibit in their lives the 
fruits of a good beginning in education. 

What are these fruits? A writer in the Century for June, 
1887,^ gives them thus : — 

" To think ; to reason ; to feel nobly ; to see the relations of things ; to 
put the ages together in their grand progress ; to trace causes ; to prophesy 
results; to discern the sources of power; to find true beginnings instead of 
unknowable caiises; to perceive the moral as governing the intellectual, and 

1 T. T. Hunger, on Education and Social Progress. 



Chap, v.] MAKING GOOD CITIZENS. 167 

both as dominating the material ; to discern the lines along which humanity 
is moving, and distinguish them from the eddies of the day, — such is the 
end of education." 

The statement suits me as well as it can him, tho he is per- 
haps thinking of ancient history more than I am. I am thinking 
of the present and its demands ; of these young men as future 
leaders, workers, advisers, and promoters of good society and 
good citizenship and good government ; and I do not hesitate 
to trust them. 

The art of feeling nobly cometh not with observation. As a 
star is often best seen when we are not looking full at it, so 
a high standard in lofty matters is often best reached through 
high standards in ordinary matters. 

Finally, I protest against that false logic which contends on 
the one hand, that, because the old system of education ad- 
mitted no utilitarian motives, all its fruits must be noble ; and 
on the other, that, because the new education recognizes utility 
as a legitimate end, all its fruits must be ignoble. 



168 THE RESULTS OF MANUAL TRAINING. [Ohap. VL 



CHAPTER VI. - 

^WHAT OTHERS V/HO HAVE SEEN IT SAY OF THE 
RESULTS OF MANUAL TRAINING. 

THE author is aware that he is not writing for those who 
are familiar with the working of a manual training school. 
He knows, also, that the success of his school has often been 
attributed to exceptionally good material- in the pupils, to 
superior teachers, and to the " contagious enthusiasm " of its 
director. Its failure under other conditions has often been 
predicted. It would be strange, indeed, if, when other schools 
exhibit so many failures, it too did not occasionally fail. 

The St. Louis Manual Training School was organized as 
such. It had had no experience as an ordinary academy. It 
does not have two records which can be compared. Let me 
then turn to other witnesses, to other schools, and to other 
teachers for testimony as to the effect of manual training when 
incorporated with high schools, and under the charge of other 
teachers and directors. I do not quote from theorizers ; I 
quote from observers, and I take them quite at random. 

The first I cut from the Journal of Education of March 
31, 1887, in its report of the superintendents' convention in 
Washington, D.C., during the same month. The italics are 
mine. 

_"H. W. Compton, superintendent of schools of Toledo, O., entered 
upon the discussion extemporaneously. He outlined what is being done in 
the city of Toledo in manual training, and bore testimony to the enthusiasm 
and earnestness of the pupils receiving instruction in manual training. The 
boys have done their shop-w^ork and daily mental school-work generally 
with eminent success. The departments are all well sustained, especially 
that of domestic economy. Manual training has increased the attendance, in 
the high school of Toledo fully one-third. It is an invaluable factor in the 
public schools of Toledo to promote industry. Pupils love the work ; it 



Chap. VI.] IT INCREASES THE ATTENDANCE. 169 

cures idleness, dignifies and exalts labor as well as thought-power. It 
stimulates habits of observation and investigation." 

Under date of March 31, 1887, the superintendent of manual 
training in the Toledo High School, Mr. R. H. Miller, writes 
me : — 

" Our girls are doing splendid work ; their mechanical drawing is neater 
and if any thing better than that of the boys. . . . We find that the work 
done by our girls (from drawings) in carpentry and wood-carving assists them 
wonderfully in drawing, and gives them a degree of confidence that those 
who simply draw do not get." 

I have repeatedly said, that drawing without shop-work loses 
half its value ; and so shop-work without drawing is educa- 
tionally inferior. Mr. Miller continues : — 

"It is expected that the manual-training pupils [i.e. those high-school 
pupils who elect manual training] will carry off all the honors next June. 
The interest of the pupils seems to steadily increase as they get deeper into 
the work, and handle more complicated machinery. Our boys seem to think 
it their duty to make life a burden to any one who speaks a disrespectful 
word regarding the Manual Training School. The most severe punishment 
we can inflict upon a pupil is to require him to sit in the high school, and 
study during his shop and drawing hours. We watch the pupils closely, 
and when one falls a little low in his average we cut off his manual work 
for a few days, or until he redeems himself; this seldom fails to bring him 
to the requii'ed standard in short order." 

The German teacher of the Toledo school wrote me last 
year that the manual work had had such a stimulating effect 
upon the pupils, that he could easily tell, from the high quality 
of their work in German, which of his class took manual 
training. 

Prof. J. M. Ordway, speaking of the observed influence of 
manual training in the Tulane High School, New Orleans, 
says : — 

" But even with the present imperfect development, the indications are, 
that it tends to awaken and keep up the intei-est of pupils in all the school 
exercises ; for by it they acquire juster ideas of the relation between books 
and actual things. They see that the school is a place for real, earnest 
work. They gain the habit of close attention to whatever is to be done. 
They learn to be patient and exact in the performance of tasks. They find 
that they have power to do something of themselves, and hence are likely 



170 THE RESULTS OF MANUAL TRAINING. [Ohap, VL 

to acquire a manly self-reliance. They do not lose time which ought to be 
devoted to intellectual studies ; for it is found, that, without over-exertion, 
they accomplish quite as much in these studies as they did before hand-work 
was introduced. They gain by alternating hand-work with pure brain-work, 
and thus resting without being idle. The surplus activity of youth, which 
is too prone to vent itself in mischief, is allowed to find scope in useful and 
pleasant employment." 

Prof. Kimo Franke of Harvard University recently wrote as 
follows in a letter to a German paper : — 

" Since the days of Rousseau, the effort to educate the rising generation 
in a more harmonious way than is possible in a school which aims only at 
the acquisition of mere scholarship has never been abandoned. The empha- 
sis which the followers of Basedow laid upon the gain of useful knowledge; 
the thought of Pestalozzi, that the first step in education consists in the 
schooling of the will, while mental discipline must be treated as something 
secondary ; Father John's gynmastics ; Froebel's successful attempt to de- 
velop- reason through the cultivation of the senses; and, finally, the meas- 
ures which have led to the establishment and growth of the polytechnic 
school, — all these manifestations are still only symptoms of the one funda- 
mental idea, that education must be directed, not to know, but to be able to 
do, not to words, but to deeds. 

" It appears to me that nowhere yet has this idea reached such a methodical 
expression as in the Manual Training School of St. Louis; which, unlike our 
German trade schools (in which only one craft or occupation is taught to 
artisans), appeals to the whole community, and aims at general pedagogical 
objects. 

" At a I'ecent visit to St. Louis, I convinced myself personally of the 
flourishing condition of the institution. In the turning division to which I 
was first led, the instruction had just begun. The teacher manufactured 
a wooden cylinder before the clasS, giving at the same time the necessary 
explanation of the proportions of the object to be made, and the methods of 
handling the tools. The pupils were encouraged to ask for further informa- 
tion by willing answers. Then the pupils began work, each at a separate 
lathe. . . . Subsequently I witnessed the English instruction. The class 
was just reading As You Like It. The pupils interpreted the context 
and language in a thoroughly scientific manner. ... I was sorry to find, 
on returning to the shop, that the closing hour had come ; and I could see 
little moi'e than a gay group of lads, with faces and hands soiled at the 
forge, with singing and jokes, washing and preparing for luqch. Still I 
could enjoy the impression of health and vigor which every thing possessed 
which I saw in the institution. ^ 

1 In the face of this testimony of an actual observer, a recent repiark by 
the editor of The Illinois Teacher, iu his issue for April, 1887, reads strangely 



Chap. VL] of special PROFIT TO STUDENTS. 171 

" The majority of the graduates turn naturally to the technical occupa- 
tions; but not a few, and their number is constantly increasing, go into 
the law, medicine, philology, or natural science. And it does not seem 
improbable to me that just these will draw special profit from the education 
gained here. Perhaps nowhere is there greater danger of losing the founda- 
tion of clear observation and sound reasoning than whex-e the objects of 
investigation are either themselves of an intellectual nature, or are only 
conceived of in a frame of hypothesis. It is just this danger which, above 
all, this school aims to avoid. He who has learned to use his hands system- 
atically has now a clearer conception between thought and fact, between 
theory and practice ; and this clearer knowledge will enable him to form 
more correct judgments in those two great spheres of observation, the real 
and the ideal, than is possible for one whose power of observation has been 
cultivated exclusively in ideal things." 

I commend these observations and reflections of Prof. Franke 
ta the thoughtful consideration of my readers. 

A visitor, who writes over the name of Mortimer Warren, 

says : — 

" The difference between the ordinary, stupid, dirty mechanic's apprentice 
and one of these intelligent, handy, clean, gentlemanly lads is as that 
between night and day." 

Mr. L. E. Holden of Cleveland, O., thus wrote in the " Cleve- 
land Herald : " — 

" I have been particularly impressed by my recent visit to Washington 
University in St. Louis, and especially with the department of manual 
training. I cannot go through with all the details of the shops and work- 
rooms, but I will give one lesson to which I listened, that you may see how 
great an improvement in the practical arts this manual training has over the 
oi'dinary schoolroom. [He then describes the lesson in "molding."] I 
was particularly impressed with the attention which every boy gave. Passing 
on to another room, a higher class were putting together a steam engine, 
every part of which had been made by the boys themselves. 

" Now it must not be thought that these boys were neglecting their 
studies, or rather their books, for Ihey were not. They were giving very 
close attention to the same class of studies as are pursued in ordinary [high] 

enough. He says, in substance, that it is quite possible that, for a time, it may be 
found practicable to employ a boy's time for play in some sort of " useful " work; 
but that in the end it will be seen that " all work and no play makes Jack a dull 
boy." Evidently he thinks a manual training school a "dull" school as com- 
pared with the old style. Of course he has never visited a manual school, and 
he has no proper conception of its bright, happy, stimulating atmosphere. 



172 THE RESULTS OF MANUAL TRAINING. [Chap. VI. 

schools, and from personal observation I am convinced that they are as far 
advanced at the same age as boys in our graded schools who are learning 
nothing except what they get from books. 

"... Now, then, let us see which class of boys would go out into the 
world at the age of eighteen or twenty years with the best prospects for life 
and good-citizenship. No one can doubt that the boy who is most practi- 
cally trained would have by far the better chance for life. If we review the 
lives of the leading men of our country, in business, in profession, and in 
statesmanship, is it not strictly true that a very laige majority have been 
boys who in early life learned to work with their hands ; who had virtually 
the advantage of a manual training, which gave them superior advantages 
in physical force, in a knowledge of practical things ; in short, in all that 
goes to the making up of a stanch manhood ? " 

Col. Augustus Jacobson of Chicago, who has been a frequent 
visitor to the St. Louis school,i writes thus to a Cleveland 
paper : — 

"The parent who sees a manual training school in operation sees solved 
before his eyes the problem how his boy may be sure to make a good living 
in the world. ... To the extent of the number of the graduates of the 
Manual Training School, the nation is sure of intelligent and valuable 
citizens. When these boys enter active life they will not need to wait for 
' something to turn up,' because they will be able to turn up something 
for themselves. If all our boys were so trained, we need give ourselves no 
anxiety for the future." 

In the preface of his admirable book on "Manual Train- 
ing," 2 Mr. Ham of Chicago says : — 

" In 1880 my attention was drawn to the manual training department 
of the Washington University of St. Louis. In that school I found the 
realization of Bacon's aphorism, ' Education is the cultivation of a just and 
legitimate familiarity betwixt the mind and things.' I made an exhaustive 
study of the methods of the St. Louis school, and reached the conclusion 
that the philosopher's stone in education had been discovered." 

Some allowance must be made for the enthusiasm of a stu- 
dent, but too much can scarcely be said of Mr. Ham's efficient 
service in making manual training known to the people of 
Chicago. 



1 Col. Jacobson was the first to call attention of Chicago to our school, and to 
resolve that Chicago should have a similar one. Tho he found a score of able 
assistants in the enterprise, it is not too much to say that Augustus Jacobson was 
the father of the Chicago Manual Training School. 

2 Manual Training, by Charles H. Ham. Harper Brothers. 1886. 



Chap. VL] the PHILOSOPHER'S STONE IN EDUCATION: 173 

Henry M. James, Esq., the superintendent of the schools of 
Omaha, Neb., where manual training has been introduced as an 
elective course in the high school, says, in his last report : — 

" The course has been optional, those taking it doing the same academic 
work as the rest of the school. Arranged in classes of twenty each, they 
have spent one and one-half hours daily in the shop under the care of a 
competent instructor, learning light carpentry and how to use and take care 
of tools. The teacher has been enthusiastic, and the interest of the boys has 
been lively and well sustained. 

" It is evident that manual training schools can not be conducted without 
considerable expense, but for this year our shop has not cost more than some 
of the regular studies of the high school. It seems evident, also, that a 
department of this kind has a tendency to hold boys in school at a time 
when there is a strong inclination to leave and go into business. Our high 
school and eighth grade have felt this [inclination to leave], and suffered 
from it as much as any school in the land; yet of the seventy-nine boys 
who took manual training last year, seventy-Jive remained in school to the 
close of the year. This is a remarkable fact in the history of the Omaha 
schools." 

Speaking of his recent visit to the Philadelphia Manual 
Training School, the accomplished editor of the Journal of 
Education, Dr. A. E. Winship of Boston, says : — 

"In neatness, in discipline, in perfection of execution, in balancing and 
blending activities, the school leaves little to be desired. The work is so 
systematic, its results so definite, its effect upon the mind, hand, and character 
so marked, that all objectors will do well to visit this institution, and take 
the time to study its working before making up their verdict." 

After nearly a year's observation of the work and influence 
of the Toledo Manual Training School, Superintendent Dowd, 
now of Toronto, says : — 

" It is certainly true that the training of a manual training school lets in a 
flood of light upon a thousand things but imperfectly understood before." 

Mr. E. R. Boyer of Central Illinois, a successful teacher and 
superintendent of several years' experience, recently spent two 
months in a manual training school, studying its methods, and 
acquiring a practical knowledge of its drawing and shop-work. 
He gives the following statement of his observation of the 
character and influence of its work : — 



174 THE RESULTS OF MANUAL TRAIN IN G~ [Chap. VI 

"In no schoolroom have I ever seen more respectful, courteous, and gen- 
tlemanly deportment by the boys than I. met in the shops of the manual 
training school. Whether at the work-bench, forge, lathe, or at their books, 
the boys are prompt, attentive, and industrious ; ready to make an honest 
effort and eager to excel. In the shops, system, order, and thoroughness 
characterize the work. No hap-hazard use of tools and materials is allowed; 
the boy, while learning the use of certain tools, and acquiring skill with the 
same, is also held accountable to the instructor for the immediate product of 
his labor and material. 

" It seems to me that this school tends to foster a due appreciation of the 
dignity of intelligent labor, and leads the boy to recognize, appreciate, and 
respect, skill and efficiency in the mechanical occupations; and that the 
school is accomplishing in a very large measure its chief purpose, — that of 
developing simultaneously the intellectual and physical powers of the boys 
under its charge." 

The prospectus of the Cleveland Manual Training School, 
opened in 1886, says : — 

" In February, 1885, a small carpenter shop was started in a ham situated 
on Kennard Street, near Euclid Avenue, for the benefit of some boys, then 
pupils in the Central High School. 

" Through the diligence and enthusiasm of those boys, the little school 
and the value of manual training was brought to the notice of some of the 
business men of this city." 

The Cleveland school was organized by Mr. Newton M-. 
Anderson, who is still in charge of it in its new, well-appointed 
quarters, in immediate connection with the high school. 

After several years of the most intimate knowledge of the 
work of the Mechanic Art School connected with the Massa- 
chusetts Institute of Technology of Boston, Prof. J. D. Runkle 
comes to these conclusions : — 

" While the training of the mental faculties must always be the first and 
distinct aim of all education, still this training is most effective when all the 
senses are most fully brought into play as factors in the general process. 

" We believe that hand instruction, no matter of what kind, if adapted to 
the age of the pupil, and properly conducted, can be made disciplinary, and 
a valuable adjunct to the purely literary studies." 

Mr. James A. Page of Boston, principal of the Dwight Gram- 
mar School, in which manual training was tried in 1882, thus 
reports : — 



Chap. VI.] A POSITIVE BENEFIT TO OTHER STUDIES. 175 

" Prom the beginning to the close the school went on with unbroken and 
successful regulai'ity. The teacher was promptly on hand, the order was 
good, the pupils interested. It was delightful to see the eager desire mani- 
fested everywhere in the room to do the day's work well. There was no 
absence, no tardiness. ... I consider that the results go far to prove that 
■ manual training is so great a relief to the iteration of school-work that it is 
a positive benefit, rather than a detriment, to the coui'se of the other 
studies. ... I have a conviction that this instruction is surely in the line 
of the teaching that is to be. . . . There are high authorities who believe 
that there can be no thoroughly clear, vigoi'ous, and enlightened brain with- 
out the cultivated hand." 

Prof. Ripper, superintendent of what is practicall}" a manual 
training school in Sheffield, Eng., thus modestly speaks of the 
result of his observations upon the effect of manual training. 
When he says that such and such things will result, it should 
be remembered that he speaks from a definite knowledge of 
what lias been effected under his own eyes. I quote from a 
recent address : — . 

" Hitherto we have been endeavoring to train the intelligence of the chil- 
dren by attempting an early development of the power of abstract reasoning, 
and by cramming their little minds with unintelligible facts ; the object 
being often, not so much to educate, as to pass a certain number at the 
annual examination. The contrast between such a system for young chil- 
dren, and the more natural system of drawing out the intelligence through 
the exercise of the hand and the eye, as in the kindergarten method, is suf- 
ficient to make one wonder that we have been content to plod on in the old 
method so long. 

"But in what way will manual training improve this condition of things? 
In this way. It will provide the connecting link between the theory of the 
school and the practice of the workshops, between books and tools, and 
between abstract rules and phrases and the reality of things. It will teach 
the dignity of labor by example rather than by precept. It will help to 
form industrious, useful habits early in life, and give a taste for doing use- 
ful work with the hands, which thousands never acquire. It will be a valu- 
able relief from the sedentary, inactive life of the school, and so counteract 
the present tendency to develop a race of dyspeptic, pale-faced children, 
whose goal is passing examinations, and whose ambition is to be somebody's 
bookkeeper. It will cultivate a respect for the worker, and an appreciation 
of the worth of his work, by direct personal contact with it, whereby it will 
be discovered how much there is to learn in order to acquire the power 
possessed by the skilled handicraftsman. In addition to this, it will provide 
the boys with a positive power to work in wood and metals with more or 



176 TEE RESULTS OF MANUAL TRAINING. [Chap. VL 

less precision, which will be a valuable aid to many a lad who is destined 
afterwards to be thrown on his own resources in our large towns and cities, 
or in some of our far-off colonies." 

Mr. John F. Moss was associated with Prof. Ripper in charge 
of the Sheffield schooL Speaking at the London Conference in 
1884, of the effect of combined manual and mental trainings 
he said : — 

" Those who are thus trained will start in the world with a very distinct 
advantage, with grander conceptions of the dignity of labor, fuller apprecia- 
tion of the duties of citizenship, and brighter prospects of useful careers- 
than could possibly be theirs without such aid." 

Mr. E. M. Dixon, the principal of Allan Glen's Institution, 
which is really a manual training school at Glasgow, Scotland/ 
says, after an experience of several years : — 

" Our experience seems to have proved that lads of fifteen or sixteen can 
acquire in two years, during-which they spend not more than one-half day 
weekly in the workshop, at least as much manual skill as is usually acquired 
by lads in the first two years of an ordinary apprenticeship." 

Again he says : — 

" Our experience being, that a systematic course of instruction in drawing,^ 
comhined ivith suitable workshop exercises, is, in almost every case, capable of 
turning out a lad at sixteen years of age able to interpret and execute tech- 
nical drawings of even considerable complication, it is desirable that practi- 
cal men should know the fact as widely "as possible, and also the mean* 
whereby it may be realized. ... I believe, that, in the case of many pupil* 
in whom the faculty of abstract thought is but moderately developed, and 
by whom the theoretical subjects of instruction are consequently apt to be 
somewhat feebly grasped, the experiences of the workshop are, or may be, 
all-important in the way of throwing light upon results that the pupil fails 
to trace as deductions from more remote principles, but which he can, of 
course, accept as facts of direct experience. I am not sure, that, even to the 
most subtile-minded, the manifold experience that a moderate amount of 
systematic workshop practice supplies may not have a very beneficial effect 
in the way of securing perfect confidence in much of the theoretical instruc- 
tion received in the lecture room." — Report of International Conference on 
Education at London, 1884, vol. ii. 

In this last paragraph, Mr. Dixon covers the whole ground. 

1 I visited this school in April, 1885, and was delighted to find both teachers 
and pupils enthusiastically engaged on an admirable program. 



Chap. VI.] LET THE TURTLE DIVE, THE HARE RUN. 177 

Prof. R. H. Thurston, director of Sibley College, Cornell 
University, says : — 

" It is marvelous to see how rapidly boys acquire the power of skillfully 
using tools. ... I believe that nineteen boys out of twenty do possess 
more or less of the mechanic's tastes and powers ; and that the other one out 
of the twenty will be so benefited, and his usefulness to himself and the 
world so increased, by shop instruction, that he will do well to secure it. 
But in the work of life a man must do that for which he is best fitted, and 
he can not hope to succeed in competition with the world if he attempts to 
make a livelihood and to carry on a business for which he is not fitted. 
The turtle may be an admirable diver, but he can not hope to succeed in the 
race with the hare — if the hare attends to his business." 

In the last chapter, I quoted from a letter of Mr. Ralph PI. 
Miller, the superintendent of the Scott Manual Training School, 
which forms the complement of the Toledo high school. He 
was No. 3 on my list. Since he wntc, the school-year has 
closed, and in the Toledo Blade I find some comments which 
are appropriate to this discussion. Speaking of the graduating 
students, the Blade says : — 

"One remarkable fact is that so many who won honors were students in 
the Manual Training School. It demonstrates that the manual training 
department of the Toledo high school is all that is claimed for it. Another 
fact which proves the efficacy of the manual training is that so many boys 
remained in the class. More boys graduated this year than ever before iu 
the history of the school." 

The roll shows eighteen boys and twenty girls. Among the 
" honor " pupils are mentioned two young ladies whose choice 
of occupation is somewhat unusual, and plainly the consequence 
of their manual training. 

" Miss Jessie Piatt has been a pupil in the Manual Training School for 
three years, and averaged the highest in her class for the high school course 
for three years, and has not been absent or tardy for five years. She will 
devote her attention in the future to architecture. 

" Miss Minnie Hales has taken the manual training course for three years, 
and will hereafter devote her attention to architectural drawing. She will 
take a post-graduate course in the manual training school next year. . . . 

" The interest taken by parents in the work of their children is best shown 
iu the attendance this afternoon. The inspection is one sei'ies of surprises. 



178 THE BESULTS OF MANUAL TRAINING. [Ohap. VI. 

The advancement made by the pupils, as they work from one grade to 
another, is so well shown, and so easily seen, that fathers and mothers can 
scarcely believe it." 

To the question : does not the intellectual work suffer if time 
is taken for industrial work in school, Miss May Mackintosh, a 
teacher experienced in manual work, replies : — 

" The answer is emphatically No ! Children, especially young children, 
can not force their attention to keep to one subject for long together, — 
the actual time vavy'vig with the children and the personal influence of the 
teacher, — and it is hurtful to them, physically, mentally, and morally, to be 
obliged to take part in any lesson after this period of fatigue is reached, — 
intellectually, because they form the habit of inattention and self-defence ; 
morally, because they are obliged to pretend attention ; and physically, 
in their poor little restless bodies, that need so much movement for their 
healthy development. Then what a blessed relief is some piece of work 
for the hands, and how fresh the interest and attention for the following 
studies. It is the most economic arrangement, even if the claims of intel- 
lectual education are considered as paramount." — Education. 

Prof. Felix Adler, who has now had eight years of experi- 
ence in the conduct of a manual training school for the grades 
from the kindergarten to the high school, says in a recent 
report : — 

" How does it come to pass that those two organs, the eye and the hand, 
which are the preferred messengers for carrying out the intentions of mind, 
should receive so little discipline ? . . . Who will deny that the future phy- 
sician, the experimenter in every department of science, and indeed every 
one to whom a deft hand and keen powers of observation are important, 
will find such a preparatory discipline in early youth an inestimable advan- 
tage ? . . . While the pupil is shaping the typical objects which the in- 
structor proposes to him as a task, while he pores silently, persistently, 
and lovingly over these objects, reaching success by dint of gradual approxi- 
mation, he is at the same time shaping his own character, and a tendency 
of mind is created from which will eventually result the loftiest and purest 
morality." 

But perhaps the most striking testimony comes from Eng- 
land. The report of the Royal Commissioners, already referred 
to, had called attention to the conditions of technical success 
in America and elsewhere, and the character of our manual 
training was fully given by Mr. William Mather, who reprer 



Chap. VI.] MR. MATHER'S MOTION IN PARLIAMENT. 179 

sented the Commission in the examination of -American schools. 
It was my privilege to contribute a paper on " Manual Train- 
ing Schools " to the International Conference on Education at 
London in 1884, and by special invitation to read an address 
on '•' Manual Training in General Education " at a conference 
at Manchester in April, 1885; As a result of three public 
discussions of the subject, during which the details of the 
St. Louis school were fully given, the Board of Managers of 
the Manchester Technical School converted it both in name: 
and in fact into a manual training school. In all discussions 
touching this subject, William Mather, Esq., was prominent ; 
and having entered Parliament the following year, as the 
member from Salford, he voiced the public interest in the new 
education by giving formal public notice of the following 
motion : — 

" That in the opinion of this House, in view of the increasing competi- 
tion of foreign nations with our manufactories both at home and abroad, it 
is necessary to extend our national system of education in order to bring 
the teaching of the natural sciences, manual training, and technical instruc- 
tion within the reach of the working classes of this country." 

The vice-president of the Council of Education, the Right 
Honorable Sir Lyon Playfair, in bringing his estimates before 
the House for the annual grant for public education, said that 
Mr. Mather's motion had his cordial approval, and he looked 
forward to the time when this comprehensive proposal would 
receive the sanction of Parliament. 

A day was set when Mr. Mather should fully discuss his 
motion before the House ; but, unfortunately, before that day 
arrived, the Liberal Government was overthrown and Parlia- 
ment was dissolved. 

But interest in the subject is on the increase, and beyond 
question great progress will soon be made. I learn from Mr. 
Mather, that one form taken by the Jubilee celebrations consists 
in promoting the establishment of manual training schools. I 
look with confidence to an early modification of the " Code " 
which shall recognize systematic manual training as legitimate 
educational work. 



180 THE RESULTS OF MANUAL TRAINING. [Ohap. VI. 

The English movement, as well as the American movement, 
as has been truly said by my enthusiastic and versatile friend. 
Rev. E. P. Powell of Utica, N.Y., is not so much an evolution, 
as a revolution, in public education. 

And now comes the announcement at the last moment (June 
1, 1887) that the London School Board, on motion of the Rev. 
Charles Lawrence, has resolved by thirty-one votes to six, " that 
in the opinion of this Board it is necessary to introduce into 
schools some regular system of manual training." 



Chap. Vn.] EXCLUSIVE STUDY OF THE CLASSICS. 181 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE COMPLEMENTARY NATURE OF MANUAL. 
TRAINING.i 

"TTTITH his gentle lance Emerson pricked many a bubble ; 
V V and, though collapse did not always follow immediately, 
the wound was always fatal. In 1844, in his essay on New 
England reformers, he charged popular education with a want of 
truth and nature. He complained that an education to things 
was not given . Said he, " We are students of words ; we are 
shut up in schools and colleges and recitation rooms for ten or 
fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory 
of words, and do not know a thing. We can not use our hands 
or our legs or our eyes or our arms." And again, speaking of 
the exclusive devotion of the schools to Latin, Greek, and 
mathematics, "which, by a wonderful drowsiness of usage," had 
been " stereotyped education, as the manner of men is," he says, 
" In a hundred high schools and colleges this warfare against 
common-sense still goes on. ... Is it not absurb that the whole 
liberal talent of this country should be directed in its best 
years on studies that lead to nothing ? " ^ 

1 An address delivered at Saratoga, N.Y., on Thursday, July 13, 1882, before a 
joint meeting of the National Teachers' Association, and the American Institute 
of Instruction. 

2 " The College [Harvard] fitted us for this active, bustling, hard-hitting, many- 
tongued world, caring nothing for authority and little for the past, but full of its 
living thought and living issues, in dealing with which there was no man who 
did not stand in pressing and constant need of every possible preparation as 
respects knowledge and exactitude and thoroughness, — the poor old college pre- 
pared us to play our parts in this world by compelling us, directly and indirectly, 
to devote the best part of onr school lives to acquiring a confessedly superficial 
knowledge of two dead languages ! " — Charles Francis Adams, Jr., A College 
Fetich, 1883. 

Similarly Mr. George S. Merriam, a graduate of Yale, speaks of the time spent 



182 ITS COMPLEMENTARY NATURE. [Chap. VH. 

This is, perhaps, too severe, but we must admit that Emerson 
anticipated and greatly aided a reform which has been gather- 
ing strength for a whole generation. Hence it is to-day scarcely 
necessary that I should present arguments in favor of manual 
education. The great tidal-wave of conviction is sweeping over 
our whole land, and the attitude and aspect of men are greatly 
changed from what they were ten years ago. What I said in 
1873 in a public address in favor of technical education was 
held to be rank heresy. I fear it would be regarded as rather 
commonplace to-day. The progressive spirit of the age has 
actually penetrated our thick hides, and we are trying to keep 
step with the universe. 

To be sure, we still call ourselves reformers, and we shall 
continue to battle for the new and true till our banners are the 
only ones flying. But the day of surrender is near at hand. 
One by one the outposts have fallen into our hands, and only 
a few citadels remain. An armistice has been asked for ; and^ 
if we can only arrange satisfactorily the terms of an honorable 
capitulation, the enemy is willing to march out and join our 
ranks. 

In every community the demands of technical education have 
been discussed, and in every instance when the old system has 
been subjected to the tests which good sense applies to business, 
it has been found wanting. 

And yet let me not pass with only words of criticism. Let 
us recognize the inestimable value of American public educa- 



in the study of words: " Up to the day when I took my diploma, there had been, I 
may say, nothing in my education that required me to use my eyes, or any of my 
senses or perceptions, for any purpose save to read the printed page. I had been 
taught no knowledge, and no means of acquiring knowledge, except from books. Of 
knowledge at first hand, I had learned absolutely nothing. . . . The whole habit 
of personal observation of the phenomena and processes of the material world 
was left out of our education entirely. That omission for myself I unspeakably 
lament. History and literature I can to some extent pick up as I go along; but I 
shall never get that intelligent, sympathetic, working knowledge of my physical 
environment for which the aptitude and instinct might have been easily gained 
when I was fourteen or sixteen. ... I was given, indeed, some of the keys to the 
liches of literature, but of things I never learned the alphabet. I acquired no use 
of my perceptions save with my eyes to read the printed page, and with my ears 
to hear my instructor's voice." — Address to Yale Alumni in 1883, as quoted by Mr. 
Adams. 



Chap. VII.] MISDIRECTED TRAINING. 183 

tion. With all its faults, it is our best inheritance. Let us be 
just, yea generous if need be, to the bridge that has brought us 
over. Let us say, " God speed your work ! " to those who are 
battling for education in States black with illiteracy, and let us 
commend the splendid work done by earnest men and women 
on all sides. But the faults — we must not be blind to them. 
If the old education has been good, we can make the new 
better. 

DEFECTIVE EDUCATION. 

Is, then, I ask — is the education we give as broad and round 
and full as it ought to be ? Is the time of tutelage most wisely 
spent? Do the results we secure justify the means and methods 
we use? Is the relation between education and morality as 
close as it should be? I think to these questions we must 
seriously answer, No ! There is a lack of harmony between 
the schoolhouse and the busy world that surrounds it. Some 
have even claimed that we are wrong in supposing that educa- 
tion always diminishes crime. Let us see if there is any truth 
in their position. 

You know how often a life is a failure from defective educa- 
tion. Too often do we see young people, who might have been 
educated to eminent usefulness, cast — 

" unfinished 
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up." 

I have seen poor lawyers, who, under a proper system of 
training, would have made excellent mechanics, and not a few 
of highly educated, able-bodied men, actually begging for the 
price of a day's board. I recall one man in particular who was 
able to speak several languages, but because no one would 
employ him as a linguist he must needs beg, for he knew not 
how to work. Now, when a man's education has been misdi- 
rected, and he is thrown upon the world, shackled by out-grpwn 
theories, bewildered by false lights, and altogether unprepared 
for the work >yhich perhaps he was born to do, and when in his 
extremity he resorts to knavery and violence and fraud to secure 
what he knows not how to get by fair means, those who directed 
or should have directed his education can not be held blameless. 



184 ITS COMPLEMENTARY NATURE. [Ohap. VIL 

The moral influence of occupation is very great. A sphere 
of labor congenial and absorbing, that fully occupies one's 
thoughts and energies, is a strong safeguard of morality. If 
you would keep men out of mischief, keep them busy with 
agreeable work or harmless play. The balance of employ- 
ments is fixed by our state of society and the grade of our 
civilization. Now, if indiscriminately we educate all our youth 
away from certain occupations and into certain others, as is 
very clearly the case, some employments will be crowded and 
consequently degraded : in others, the choicest positions will be 
filled by foreigners; and the lowest posts, wherein labor is 
without dignity, must perforce be filled by those who have 
neither taste nor fitness for their work. The result is broils, 
plots, and social disorder. 

Thirty years ago an eloquent Frenchman (Frederic Bastiat) 
charged the one-sided education of his countrymen with being 
an actual danger to society. He argued that the " stranded 
graduates," as he called those who, unable to navigate the 
rough waters of practical life, had been tossed high and dry 
on the reefs along the shore, " filled with a sense that the 
country which had encouraged them to devote their best years 
to classic studies owed them a living, or a means of living, 
would become the leaders of mobs, and officers at the barri- 
cades." 

MORE LIGHT. 

When the shadow of death was drawn over the great Goethe, 
he uttered his last wish for " more light." We must echo his 
cry, if we would prepare our American system of education 
for a more glorious destiny. We treat our children too much 
as the unskilled gardener treats his plants. He puts them by 
a window and pours over them a flood of light and life-giving 
rays. Instinctively they turn out towards the source of their 
strength. They put forth their leaves and budding promises ; 
and, as we look at them from the outside, we mark their flour- 
ishing aspect, and rejoice. But, if we look at the other side, 
we shall find them neglected, deficient, and deformed. What 
they want is more light — light on the other side. Were the 



Chap. Vn.] A PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATION. 185 

sun always in the east, our trees would all grow like those on 
the edge of the forest, one-sided. 

So in education, we must open new windows, or rather we 
must level with the ground all artificial barriers, and let every 
luminous characteristic of modern life shine in upon our school- 
rooms. We must ]3ay less heed to what the world was two or 
three hundred years ago, and regard with greater respect what 
the world is to-day. Before we devote ourselves exclusively 
to the arts of expression, we must cultivate all the faculties 
and encourage the growth of thoughts worthy of expression. 

THE ARTS OF EXPRESSION. 

Dr. Youmans recently said (^Popular Science Monthly/, May, 
1882): — 

"The human mind is no longer to be cultivated merely by the forms or 
arts of expression. The husks and shells of expression have had sufficient 
attention ; we have now to deal with the living kernel of truth. . . . Under 
the old ideal of culture, a man may still be grossly ignorant of the things 
most interesting and now most important to know. . . . Modern knowledge 
is the highest and most perfected form of knowledge, and it is no longer 
possible to maintain that it is not also the best knowledge for that cultiva- 
tion of mind and character which is the proper (i.e., the highest) object of 
education." 

I desire, for a moment, to direct your attention to the arts 
of expression. Next in rank to the ability to think deeply and 
clearly is the power of giving clear and full expression to our 
thoughts. This last can be done in various ways. As this 
brings me squarely upon a subject I wish to impress strongly 
upon you, I will illustrate it by a somewhat elaborate example. 

A gentleman recently called upon me for my opinion con- 
cerning a certain automatic brake for freight-cars. The device 
was new to me, but it lay pretty clearly defined in the mind of 
my visitor. It was not original with him, but for the purposes 
of my illustration it might have been. Before I could pass 
judgment, the device must lie as clearly in my mind as it 
did in his, perhaps more clearly : so he set out to express his 
thought. He was what we call well-educated, being a gradu- 
ate of the oldest university in the land, and was well versed 



186 ITS COMPLEMENTARY NATURE. [Chap. YH. 

in the conventionalities of spoken and written languages. Ac- 
cordingly he proceeded to utter a succession of sounds. His 
lips opened and shut with great rapidity, and without intermis- 
sion a series of sounds fell upon my ears. The sounds T heard 
were quite familiar to me, as I had been listening to them in 
one order and another for over forty years ; and as they had 
always been associated in my mind with certain concrete, things, 
and the relations of such things to each other, certain thoughts 
about those things began to take shape in my mind. 

Of course, the sounds I heard had not the smallest likeness 
to the things called up by them in my, mind. To an Italian 
peasant, or to Archimedes of Syracuse, they would have been 
as unintelligible as the chattering of a magpie. They were 
purely arbitrary or conventional ; yet much of our education 
had been devoted to their mastery. Nevertheless, as a means 
for expressing thought, they were in the present case quite 
inadequate. The ideas aroused in my mind were confused and 
fragmentary, and altogether unsatisfactory. Had my friend 
resorted to writing a description of the invention, in either 
English, French, German, Latin, or Greek, using in every case 
a set of purely conventional symbols (to represent other sets 
of conventional sounds) which we had both spent years in 
getting some "knowledge of, he would have succeeded little 
better. Whether speaking or writing, much of his thought he 
could not clothe in words. He therefore abandoned the wholly 
conventional, or verbal, art of expression, and turned to the 
pictorial. 

But here he soon confessed that his education was deficient. 
He had never studied the art of representing objects having 
three dimensions on a surface having but two, and hence he 
was ignorant of the methods he ought to adopt to express by 
drawings the objects he was thinking of. However, I caught 
more of his meaning from some crude attempts at sketching 
than I did from all his talk. A few lines were luminous, yet 
they left far too much for me to supply by my imagination ; 
hence my visitor withdrew, and sent me a full set of what we 
called "working drawings," made by the inventor, who was a 
draughtsman. 



Chap VIL] THBEE METHODS OF EXPRESSION. 187 

These drawings, tho a sort of ocular resemblance to the 
things signified, were still half conventional, and required on 
my part a certain amount of training to enable me fully to 
understand them. This, fortunately, I had received ; and, 
through the art of expression embodied in them, I gained a 
tolerably clear idea of the thought of the inventor. With 
scarce a written or spoken word, they expressed that thought 
far more clearly and fully than any merely verbal description 
could do ; they showed the relations of parts which were 
beyond the reach of words. 

But my friend was not content to stop there. The drawings 
had been but partially intelligible to him, with their " plans, 
elevations, and sections ; " and, judging me by himself, he be- 
lieved that a third art of expression would out-value both the 
others. He therefore invited me to call at a shop and examine 
a specimen of the deAdce itself, produced by a skilled mechanic. 
The real article., which is the mechanic's art of expression, 
proved to be an improvement even upon the thought of tlie 
inventor. The latter had not been a mechanic, and he had 
made the sort of mistakes that draughtsmen who are not fair 
mechanics always make. Certain parts of the design it had 
been practically impossible to construct, as they involved shapes 
that could not be molded by ordinary means. A nut had 
been placed where it was next to impossible to turn it ; and 
certain parts which were to be of cast-iron had been given such 
dimensions that the castings would have snapped in pieces 
while cooling. These errors had been corrected by the me- 
chanic, and the perfected thought lay fully expressed before 
me. 

In this illustration we have three greatly different methods 
of expressing essentially the same thought. Each constitutes 
a distinct language, and each is absolutely essential to modern 
civilization. 

You will note how a crude thought often takes practical 
shape in the hands of the draughtsman and the mechanic. 
*' Drawing," says Prof. Sylvanus P. Thompson, " is the very 
soul of true technical education, and of exact and intelligent 
workmanship." Those who have tested this can tell how many 



188 ITS COMPLEMENTARY NATURE. [Chap. VII. 

marvels of ingenuity, as lovely as a chateau en JSspagne, have 
vanished in the presence of " plans and elevations ; " and how 
many beautifully drawn designs have been mercilessly con- 
demned as impracticable by judges versed in the laws of 
construction and the strength of materials. 

Much more could be said upon the arts of expression, their 
relative importance and proper cultivation. You will readily 
think, as did Lessing in his Laocoon, of poetry, painting, and 
sculpture. You will recall how lofty thoughts have in all ages 
found expression in architectural forms ; and yet throughout all 
the history of architecture the laws of mechanics as then under- 
stood, and the properties of the materials used, have determined 
the different styles. In our own age we are trying to express 
ourselves in iron and steel, and to cast off the fetters of an 
age of marble and granite. 

In a recent address Mr. Charles H. Ham of Chicago said, 
that, by putting thought into seventy-five cents' worth of ore, 
it is converted into pallet-arbors worth twenty-five hundred 
thousand dollars. He continues : " Skilled labor is embodied 
thought — thought that houses, feeds, and clothes mankind. 
The nation that applies to labor the most thought, the most 
intelligence (i.e., that best expresses its thought in concrete 
form), will rise highest in the scale of civilization, will gain 
most in wealth, will most surely survive the shocks of time, 
will live longest in history." 

But some one will say, as to methods of expression, " One 
art is enough for me ; make me master of one, and I will care 
for no second." I answer, you are thinking of an impossibility. 
If a mechanic is only a mechanic, he is never a master, even of 
his own art. He is crippled at every turn ; he is limited in 
expressing himself to what he can make. He is without that 
powerful ally, drawing, the short-hand of the imagination ; and 
in the presence of thoughts that baffle concrete expression he is 
dumb. Valuable machines even are sometimes purely imaginary. 
Clerk Maxwell, in his " Theory of Heat," says, " For the pur- 
poses of scientific illustration we shall describe the working of 
an engine of a species entirely imaginary, — one which it is 
impossible to construct, but very easy to understand," referring 



Chap, vil] the highest education. 189 

to Carnot's engine. In like manner, if one would command 
confidence as a draughtsman, he must be a mechanic as well. 
And finally, if I am a student of words alone, and if I go not 
beyond my dictionaries, I shall never guess their meaning. A 
large proportion of our emphatic words are technical ; they 
belonged originally to some craft, and none but a craftsman 
knows their exact meaning. President Eliot of Harvard once 
said that the highest education was that which gave one the 
fullest and most accurate use of his mother tongue. I would 
modify the statement, and claim that the highest and most 
liberal education is that, which, beside cultivating most fully 
the powers of thought, gives one full command of all the arts 
of expression. 

I need not remark that many, perhaps most, thoughts do not 
admit of concrete, nor even of pictorial, expression, — as, for 
example, all abstractions ; hence, they suffer seriously from want 
of clearness. If you have a clear thought on abstract matters, 
you can never be sure you have expressed it clearly. 

The thought must precede its expression by any method, and 
in the cultivation of the thinking mind the concrete should pre- 
cede the abstract. Give children clear and accurate thoughts 
of real things, of the material world we live in, of real plants 
and animals, of the laws of materials, of qualities and then of 
quantities, before you venture on the field of abstractions. 
Before you cultivate the high arts, make sure of the low ones: 
without them as a foundation, no superstructure of fine art 
can safely be built. As Emerson says (in Man, the Reformer), 
" We must have a basis for our higher accomplishments, our 
delicate entertainments of poetry and philosophy, in the work 
of our hands. We must have an antagonism in the tough 
world for all the variety of our spiritual faculties, or they will 
not be horn.'''' 

A habit of clear thinking once formed will never leave us, 
however abstract our investigations become ; while a habit of 
stopping short with ill-defined results, of resting content with 
obscure and half-grown mental images, of accepting a mental 
attitude of fogginess, has a stultifying effect which seriously 
dwarfs the mind. This is a most important subject, but I have 



190 ITS COMPLEMENTARY NATURE. [Chap. VII, 

place for but a few words of exhortation. Give children clear 
thoughts, and begin with the concrete. When the mind is too 
weary or too sick to clear up obscurities, it is time to seek rest 
and recreation and fresh air. Beware of straining the powers 
of attention by too much schooling ; beware of overtaxing the 
mind by too many and too difficult subjects ; and especially 
beware of poisoning the blood and clebilitati ig the brain by bad 
air. The fruit of any and all these evils is mental as well as 
physical decrepitude. 

THE AIMS OF EDUCATION. 

But to return. I claim for these forms of expression, which 
I have taken pains to distinguish, more nearly equal care and 
consideration in the elementar}^ education of every child. Teach 
language and literature and mathematics with a view to make 
each child a master of the art of verbal expression. Teach 
mechanical and free drawings with the conventions of shade 
and color, and aim at a mastery of the art of pictorial expres- 
sion. And, lastly, teach the cunning fingers the wonderful 
power and use of tools, and aim at nothing less than a mastery 
of the fundamental mechanical processes. To do all these 
things while the mind is gaining strength and clearness and 
material for thought, is the function of a manual training 
school. 

PREJUDICES TO BE OVERCOME. 

The traditions are heavily against us, but the traditions of 
the fathers must yield to the new dispensation. As was to 
have been expected, the strongest prejudices against this reform 
exist in old educational centers. 

As Prest. Walker of the New York Board of Education 
frankly admitted at the laying of the corner-stone of Prof. 
Felix Adler's splendid institution, " The Workingman's School 
and Free Kindergarten," the methods> and aims proposed by 
the advocates of manual training schools are a criticism upon the 
methods and alms of the established sj^stem, and nothing is 
more natural than for it to resent the criticism and discourage 
reform. 



Chap. Vn.] POLITE LEARNING. 191 

No man has done more — nay, no man has done as much — to 
introduce the manual feature mto American education as Prof. 
John D. Runkle of Boston ; and yet the School of Mechanic Arts 
established by him in connection with the Massachusetts Insti- 
tute of Technology has, after an existence of several years, been 
apparently almost frozen out in the biting atmosphere of that 
highly aesthetic city.^ I doubt if one could find on American 
soil a more unpromising field for a manual training school than 
beneath the lofty elms of Cambridge and New Haven. 

LUXURIES IN EDUCATION. 

There are luxuries in education, as in food and dress and 
equipage ; and in wealthy communities the luxuries command 
the chief attention. At the English universities of Oxford and 
Cambridge, a large proportion of the students expect to be 
gentlemen of leisure. The idea of giving heed to the demands 
of skilled labor, of preparing for lives of activity and usefulness ; 
the idea of earning one's daily bread, and of supporting one's 
family, — scarcely enters their heads. Either they inherit 
livings, or they seek to get livings through the Church, or they 
enter the army with commissions purchased by kind friends 
who wish to get them out of the way, or they go into law and 
politics. It is on wonder that such men devote themselves 
largely to the luxuries of education, Sanscrit, Latin hexameters, 
Italian ; in a word, to " polite " learning. In such an atmo- 
sphere as that, how incongruous is the plea of mine for an edu- 
cation to things ; for a training of the hand and eye as well as 
the intellect to lives of useful employment ! Yet half the col- 
leges in the United States ape the English universities, and half 
the high schools ape the colleges. 

The result of all this has been a certain false sestheticism 
which turns away from the materialism of our new notions. 
The highly cultivated would soar away into purer air and nobler 
spheres. There is a feelmg, more or less clearly expressed, that 
the material world is gross and unrefined ; that soiled hands 

1 This was said five years ago. I am most happy to say that such criticism is 
no longer possible. 



192 ITS COMPLEMENTARY NATURE. [Chap. VIL 

are a reproach ; that the garb of a mechanic necessarily clothes 
a person of sordid tastes and low desires. As Dr. Eliot of 
St. Louis has expressed it : " It is thought to be a sad descent 
for a university whose aim should be the highest education to 
stoop to the recognition of hand-crafts of the mechanic." 

MANUAL EDUCATION. 

Perhaps no better general statement of the new creed has 
been made than that of Stephen A. Walker, in a speech already 
referred to. He put it for us thus : " Education of the hand 
and the eye should go along with, pari passu, the education of 
the mind. We believe in making good workmen as well as in 
making educated intellects. We think these are things that 
can be done at the same time, and our proposition is that 
they can be done better together than separately." 

As I said in the beginning, this proposition is meeting with 
general favor among the people. I have pointed out the 
sources of some of the opposition ; it remains for me to 
touch upon the two objections which I surmise are about the 
only ones in the minds of my hearers. You ask first, " Is 
your proposition practicable ? " You doubt the feasibility of 
uniting in a real school such incongruous elements as arith- 
metic and carpentry, history and blacksmithing. You fear 
either that the shop-work will demoralize the school, or that 
the shop-work will never rise above the dignity of a mere 
pastime. 

Now, I claim not only that what I propose can be done, but 
that it has been done in St. Louis, and perhaps elsewhere as 
well. 

ORGANIZATION OF A MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. 

Prof. Thompson, in his valuable essay on the apprenticeship 
schools of France, classifies French technical schools under four 
heads : — 

1. The school in the workshop or factory. 

2. The workshop in the school. 

3. The school and the shop side by side. 

4. The half-time schools. 



Ohap.Vn.] THE SHOP A PART OF THE SCHOOL. 193 

In the first class the school is subordinate to the factory ; 
the boys or girls learn a particular trade, and every thing in the 
school as well as in the shop is designed to meet the wants of 
those expecting to enter the particular trade. For obvious 
reasons there can be no general adoption of such a combination 
in this country. Prof. Thompson gives his verdict in favor of 
the school and the shop side by side, though there is much to 
recommend the second plan. 

No one of the French plans exactly suits me. I j^refer to 
incorporate manual with intellectual education, and include 
both under the name school. We don't have what you call 
school in the morning, and shop in the afternoon ; nor do we 
spend the forenoons with tools, and devote a few evening hours 
to study and recitation : our school program combines the old 
and the new in just proportion. 

There is no confusion, no sense of incongruity. The boys 
go as soberly to shop as to recitation ; though I ought to add 
that almost without exception they delight in the use of tools, 
and it is no small punishment to be kept from the shop for 
some neglected lesson. 

The Manual Training School of St. Louis differs from all 
other technical schools with which I am acquainted. It much 
resembles the Boston School of Mechanic Arts; though it differs 
from it in admitting boys at fourteen instead of fifteen years 
of age, in having a three years' course instead of two, and in. 
having a full and independent equipment of study and reci- 
tation rooms as well as shops. I gladly avail myself of this 
occasion to publicly acknowledge our indebtedness to the able 
reports and papers published by ex-President Runkle on the 
Russian system of tool instruction, and the organization and 
work of his school. 

All European schools of the same grade are more or less 
devoted to particular trades, excepting the school at Komatau, 
Bohemia, and perhaps other similar schools, where the shop- 
work is three times as much per day as with us, and where 
book-learning is crowded between very narrow limits. 

In like manner, all other technical schools in this country are 
either devoted to single trades, or they are of a higher grade. 



194 ITS COMPLEMENTARY NATURE. [Chap. VH. 

To those who do not care for the details, I will say that our 
course of study runs through three years in five parallel lines. 

First, A course in pure mathematics. 

Second, A course in science and applied mathematics. 

Third, A course in language and literature. 

Fourth, A course in penmanship and drawing. 

Fifth, A course in tool-work in woods and metals. 

Our school is not managed on the assumption that every boy 
who goes through it will be a mechanic, or that he will be a 
manufacturer. They will doubtless find their way into all the 
professions. We strive to help them find their true callings, 
and we prejudice them against none.^ I have no sort of doubt, 
however, that the grand result will be that many who otherwise 
would eke out a scanty subsistence as clerks, book-keepers, 
salesmen, poor lawyers, murderous doctors, whining preachers, 
abandoned penny-a-liners, or hardened " school-keepers " will be 
led, through the instrumentality of our school, to positions of 
honor and comfort as mechanics, engineers, or manufacturers. 

NO ARTICLES MADE FOR SALE. 

For the purpose of discountenancing certain grave popular 
fallacies in this country, I will add a word, even at the risk of 
repeating what I have said elsewhere, as to our plan of shop 
management. We do not manufacture articles for sale, nor do 
we pretend to fully teach particular trades. 

1 In June, 1881, I wrote as follows to the Chicago Tribune : " We do not expect 
that all will develop into fine mechanics just because all are required to take the 
regular course of shop-work; neither do we expect that all will develop into fine 
mathematicians just because all study algebra; nor that all will acquire a fault- 
less English style just because we lay unusual stress upon English composition 
and literature. The purpose of the school is to develop, to educate, as well as to 
train; to bring out into clear relief those very aptitudes which ought to control 
the destiny of the boy. "What we complain of in ordinary schools is that they 
are one-sided, — that they draw (or drive) away from mechanical pursuits without 
regard to fitness. Many of our pupils will go forward through the higher courses 
in letters or engineering. No check is to be placed upon them. An increasing 
number will unquestionably be drawn to practical mechanics of some kind or 
degree. If every one makes a wise choice, I shall be satisfied. I am anxious only 
for them to choose aright. If the school (which aims impartially to be a mental 
and moral and manual training school) should serve no other end but that of 
enabling a parent to decide what to do with his son, it would still be worth all 
it cost." 



Chap, VU.] THE SCHOOL IS NOT A FACTOR ¥. 195 

A shop which manufactures for the market, and expects a 
revenue from the sale of its products, is necessarily confined 
to salable work, and a systematic and progressive series of exer- 
cises is practically impossible. If the shop is managed in the 
interest of the student, he is allowed to leave a step or a process 
the moment he has fairly learned it ; if it is managed with a 
view to an income (and the school will be counted a failure if 
its income is wanting), the boys will be kept at what they can 
do best, and new lessons will be few and far between. In such 
a shop the pupils will suifer too much the evils of a modern 
apprenticeship. 

" The common apprentice is a drudge set to execute all kinds of miscel- 
laneous jobs. There is no systematic gradation in the difficulty of the 
exercises given hiin; more than half his hours are purely wasted, and the 
other half are spent on work unsuited to his capacity. What wonder that 
four, five, or six years make of him a bad, unintelligent, unskillful machine I " 
— Prof. Sylvanus Thompson. 

A very bright boy of seventeen years had expected last fall 
to enter a pattern-shop in St. Louis as an apprentice, but was 
disappointed, there being no vacancy in the number of appren- 
tices allowed. He therefore came to the Manual Training 
School, and during the year made excellent progress, not only 
in carpentry and Avood-turning, but in drawing, mathematics, 
and physics. When he showed me some of his handiwork at 
the end of tlie year, I asked him if he would have made 
equal progress as an apprentice? "No," said he, "I should 
have spent most of the first year sweeping out offices and run- 
ning errands." ^ 

SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS. 

I fancy there is no more pernicious fallacy than this of mak- 
ing a school self-supporting by manufacturing for the market. 
Suppose you attempt to maintain one of those popular humbugs, 
a commercial college, on that theory ; or to run a full medical 
school, without endowment, on the self-supporting plan (the 

1 Since the above was written, a gentleman told me of his father's experience 
wlieu learning the trade of a tanner, in Philadelphia, many years aga. He lived 
in the family of his employer, and during the first six months he tended the baby. 



196 ITS COMPLEMENTARY NATURE. [Chap, Vn. 

students would probably write prescriptions cheap, and cut off 
legs for half-price) ; or to manage a public school of oratory 
and English composition on the strength of an income derived 
from contributions to newspapers and magazines, and from 
orations made and delivered to order ! Nothing could be more 
absurd, and yet the cases are closely parallel. No, do not be 
beguiled by the seductive promise of an income from the shop. 
Admit from the first the well-established fact, that a good 
school for thorough education on whatever subject costs money, 
both for its foundation and its support. 

Closely connected is the matter of teaching particular trades, 
to which the lads shall be strictly confined. Such a course 
ma}^ work well in monarchies, where the groove in which one 
is to run is cut out for him before he is born ; but it is un- 
suited to the soil and atmosphere of America. A single trade 
is educationally very narrow, while their number is legion. 
" The arts are few, the trades are many," says Mr. Runkle. 
The arts underlie all trades: therefore, let us teach the' arts as 
impartially and thoroughly as possible, and then it is but a 
step to a trade. 

BUT A STEP TO A TRADE. 

And this brings me to a very important point. Admitting 
that with a suitable outfit of tools, shops, etc., a program such 
as I have described can be carried out, you ask, "■ Cui bono ? 
What, after all, is the manual training acquired at school 
good for? Has the mind been nourished through the fingers' 
ends ? Has the hand gained any enduring skill ? Is it really 
but a step from the door of the manual training school to 
the shop of the craftsman ? " 

Experience answers all these questions satisfactorily, and 
adds that there is scarcely a calling in society that is not edified 
by manual training. Rousseau once remarked that " to know 
how to use one's fingers gave a superiority in every condition 
in life." I recently made systematic inquiry among the parents 
of my boys, as to the effect of the one or two year's training in 
our school. Their rej)orts on the points now under considera- 
tion are both interesting and encouraging. They write : — 



Chap. VIL] rilE TEST OF UTILITY. 197 

" Gerald takes great interest in fixing up things generally." 

" Charles fixed my sewing-machine." 

" George has made many little matters of household utility, 
and seems to delight in it." 

"• We go to Henry to have chairs mended, shelves put up, 
etc., and he does excellent work. He made a fine set of screen 
frames." 

" The mechanical faculty was quite small in John's case, and 
it has been developed to a remarkable extent." 

" Leo does all the jobs around the house ; " and so on for 
nearly a hundred pupils. 

Again, the parents testify to an increased interest in practical 
affairs, in shops and machinery, and in such books and periodi- 
cals as the Scie7itijic American. Beyond question, there is 
a certain intellectual balance, a good mechanical judgment, a 
sort of level-headedness in practical matters, consequent upon 
this sort of training, that in value far outweighs special prod- 
ucts. Said Rousseau, in his Emilius, a hundred and twenty 
years ago : " If, instead of keeping a boy poring over books, I 
employ him in a workshop, his hands will be busied to the 
improvement of his understanding; he will become a philoso- 
pher while he thinks himself only an artisan." 

As to enduring skill, I will let you judge for yourselves. 
The blacksmithing has occupied the second-year class about 
two hundred hours, — ten a week. Each man had his forge 
and set of tools, and each executed substantially the same set 
of pieces. Here is a partial set of the work done. The pieces 
are numbered in the order in which they were done. They 
were first wrought in cold lead, while the order of the steps 
and the details of form were studied, and then they were exe- 
cuted in hot iron. 

One of our engineering students, who had had about one 
hundred and twenty hours in the blacksmith's shop, and an 
equal time in the machine-shop, writes to thank me especially 
for insisting upon his shop-pfactice. Without it he would 
have had to decline a fine position, which with it he filled 
satisfactorily. 

As our school has seen but two years, I cannot appeal to its 



198 ITS COMPLEMENTARY NATURE. [Ohap. VIL 

graduates to answer the question : How far is it from our door 
to positions as journeymen mechanics? Hence, I avail myself 
of the testimony of Mr. Thomas Foley, instructor of forging, 
vise-work, and machine-tool work in the Boston Mechanic Art 
School. He had himself served an apprenticeship of seven 
years, and after several years at his trade had given instruction 
for five years. We must consider him a competent judge. In 
his report to Prof. Runkle, and contributed by the latter to the 
recent report of the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of 
Education, Mr. Foley says : " The system of apprenticeship of 
the present day, as a general rule, amounts to very little for the 
apprentice, considering the time he must devote to the learning 
of his trade. He is kept upon such work as will most profit his 
emploj^er, who thus protects himself. . . . Now, it appears like 
throwing away two or three years of one's life to attain a 
knowledge of any business that can be acquired in the short 
space of twelve or thirteen days by a proper course of instruc- 
tion. [I take it that "by twelve days he means a hundred and 
twenty hours distributed over about forty days.] The dex- 
terity which comes from practice can be reached as quickly 
after the twelve days' instruction as after the two or more 
years spent as an apprentice under the adverse circumstances 
mentioned above." 

Mr. Foley secures the best results from lessons only three 
hours long. He adds : " The time is just sufficient to create a 
vigorous interest without tiring ; it also leaves a more lasting 
impression than by taxing the physical powers for a longer 
period. We have tried four hours a day, but find that a larger 
amount of work, and of better quality, can be produced in the 
three-hour lessons." 

I consider this testimony of Mr. Foley very conclusive. It 
effectually disposes of the claim, so often put forward by prac- 
tical men, that no boy can learn a trade properly without going 
to the shop at seven o'clock in the morning and making his day 
of ten hours, " man-fashion ; " and that dirt and drudgery, and 
hard knocks, and seasons of intense weariness and disgust 
even, are essential to the education of a good mechanic. 



Chap. Vn.] IT IS WORTH ALL IT COSTS. 199 



THE COST. 

It remains for me to touch upon the second important ques- 
tion you all have in your minds, namely, that of the cost. You 
are practical men and women, and you wish now to sit down 
and count the cost. 

We set out in St. Louis to have the best of everything. We 
bought the best tools, and put in the best furniture. We have 
plenty of room and light and pure air. We aim to have good 
teachers and all necessary appliances. Our capacity is about 
two hundred and forty boys, iji three classes of one hundred, 
eighty, and sixty, in the first year, second year, third year 
classes respectively. 

Our building complete cost about $33,000 

Our tools and school furniture ...... 16,000 

If we add the cost of the lot (150 x 106^ feet) . . . 14,400 

We have as the total cost of our plant . . . $63,400 

The building is of brick, three stories high, and very sub- 
stantial. 

Where land is cheap, and less or lighter machinery is used, 
less money would suffice ; but let no one deceive himself by 
supposing that the reform proposed is to be at once a money- 
saving one. Such a school costs money, but it is a grand in- 
vestment. Said one of our benefactors to me not ten days ago, 
" I feel better satisfied with the money I have put into the 
Manual Training School than with any other money I have 
invested in St. Louis." 

The same objection, the cost, applies to chemical and physical 
laboratories of colleges ; and one of the jnain reasons why so 
many so-called colleges in the Western States devote their 
attention almost exclusively to classics, mathematics, and his- 
tory is that they are too poor to properly cultivate chemistry, 
physics, and practical mechanics. 

As to the cost of instruction, the shop is about as expensive 
per hour as the recitation and drawing rooms. Good mechanics, 
fairly educated, who are at the same time endowed with the 



200 ITS COMPLEMENTARY NATURE. [Chap. Vn. 

divine gift of teaching, are rare. We have a first-class machin- 
ist and an expert blacksmith, and pay each twelve hundred 
dollars per year. The size of our divisions is generally limited 
to twenty members ; in drawing, we shall occasionally " double 
up." 

Incidentals — wood, iron, paper, etc., and the wear and tear 
of tools — amounted last year to about seven dollars per head. 
The total cost of supplies and instruction in all the depart- 
ments of the school, and all incidentals, next year is estimated 
to be seventy-five dollars per pupil. 

How then, say you, can this costly reform be accomplished? 
The public schools have no funds to spare ; salaries are still too 
low, and the demand for extensions outruns the supply. As 
Col. Jacobson of Chicago has said, " The alternative before you 
is more and better education at greater expense ; or a still greater 
amount of money wasted on soldiers and policemen, destruction 
of property, and stoppage of social machinery. The money 
which the training would cost will be spent in any event. It 
would have been money in the pocket of Pittsburg if she could 
have caught her rioters of July, 1877, at an early period of 
their career, and trained them at any expense just a little beyond 
the point at which men are likely to burn things promiscu- 
ously. It is wiser and better and cheaper to spend our money 
in training good citizens, than in shooting bad ones." 

HOW TO GO TO WORK. 

There are two ways of going to work : — 

First, Cut down somewhat, if necessary, the curriculum of 
higher studies, and incorporate a manual department with your 
high school. The investment will pay, and tlie means for 
further growth will soon be found. 

Second, Mature your plans, and lay them before your wealthy 
public-spirited men. Almost for the first time in America, we 
are harvesting a splendid crop of millionaires. They abound 
in every citj^ They know that boundless wealth left to sons 
and heirs is often a curse, rarely a blessing, and they would 
fain put it to the noblest uses. In England such wealth would 
naturally go to the establishment of noble families, or the pur- 



Chap. Vn.] AN AMERICAN PEERAGE. 201 

chase of grand estates which should be transmitted unimpaired 
to the oldest sons through successive generations. 

Our American peerage shall consist of those who devote the 
gains of an honorable career to the establishment of institutions 
for the better education of generations that shall come after 
them. Let others follow the example of Cornell and Vander- 
bilt, Stevens of Hoboken, Girard of Philadelphia, Johns Hop- 
kins of Baltimore, Case of Cleveland, Rose of Terre Haute, the 
Commercial Club of Chicago, and Gottlieb Conzelman, Samuel 
Cupples, Edwin Harrison, and Ralph Sellew of St. Louis. 



202 THE FRUITS OF MANUAL TRAINING. [Ohap. VIIL 



CHAPTER VIIL 

THE FRUITS OF MANUAL TRAINING.i 

THE object of this paper is to consider directly the fruits of 
manual training. By manual training I do not mean 
merely the training of the hand and arm. If a school should 
attempt the very narrow task of teaching only the manual 
details of a particular trade or trades, it would, as Felix Adler 
says, violate the rights of the children. It would be doing the 
very thing I have always protested against. That, or very 
nearly that, is what is done in the great majority of European 
trade-schools. They have no place in our American system 
of education. 

The word " manual " must, for the present, be the best word 
to distinguish that peculiar system of liberal education which 
recognizes the manual as well as the intellectual. I advocate 
manual training for all children as an element in general educa- 
tion. I care little what tools are used, so long as proper habits 
(morals) are formed, and provided the windows of the mind are 
kept open toward the world of thmgs and forces, physical as 
well as spiritual. 

We do not wish or propose to neglect or underrate literary 
and scientific culture ; we strive to include all the elements in 
just proportion. When the manual elements which are essen- 
tial to a liberal education are universally accepted and incor- 
porated into American schools, the word " manual " may very 
properly be dropped. 

I use the word " liberal " in its strict sense of " free." No 
education can be " free " which leaves the child no choice, or 

^ From an address before the National Teachers' Association at Saratoga, 
July, 1883. 



Chap. VIIL] a liberal EDUCATION. 203 

which gives a bias against any honorable occupation ; which 
walls up the avenues of approach to any vocation requiring 
intelligence and skill. ' A truly liberal education educates 
equally for all spheres of usefulness ; it furnishes the broad 
foundation on which to build the superstructure of a happy, 
useful, and successful life. To be sure, this claim has been 
made for the old education, but the claim is not allowed. 
The new education has the missing features all supplied. The 
old education was like a two-legged stool, it lacked stability ; 
the new education stands squarely on three legs, and it is 
steady on the roughest ground. 

I claim as the fruits of manual training, when combined, as 
it always should be, with generous mental and moral training, 
the following : — 

1. Larger classes of boys in the grammar and high schools ; 
2. Better intellectual development ; 3. A more wholesome 
moral education ; 4. Sounder judgments of men and things, 
and of living issues ; 5. Better choice of occupations ; 6. A 
higher degree of material success, individual and social ; 7. 
The elevation of many of the occupations from the realm of 
brute, unintelligent labor, to positions requiring and rewarding 
cultivation and skill ; 8. The solution of " labor " problems. I 
shall touch briefly on each of these points. 

1. Boys will stay in School longer than they do 
NOW. Every one knows how classes of boys diminish as they 
approach and pass through the high school. The deserters 
scale the walls and break for the shelter of active life. The 
drill is unattractive, and, so far as they can see, of comparatively 
little value. There is a wide conviction of the inutility of 
schooling for the great mass of children beyond the primary 
grades, and this conviction is not limited to any class or grade 
of intelligence. Wage-workers we must have, and the gradu- 
ates of the higher grades are not expected to be wage-workers. 
According to the report of the president of the Chicago School 
Board, about one and one-eighth per cent of the bojs in the 
public schools are in the high schools. From his figures it 
appears, that, if every boy in the Chicago public schools should 
extend his schooling through a high school, the four classes 



204 THE FRUITS OF MANUAL TRAINING. [Ohap. VIII 

of the high school would con tarn some nine thousand boys; in 
point of fact, they have about four hundred. 

Superintendent Hinsdale of Cleveland says, " Of one hun- 
dred and eight pupils (boys and girls) entering the primary 
school, sixty complete the primary, twenty finish the grammar, 
four are found in the second class of the high, and one graduates 
from the high school." In St. Louis the average age at which 
pupils withdraw from the public schools is thirteen and a half 
years. Now, I doubt if any reflecting person would consider it 
an unmixed good if every boy in the city should go through 
the high school as it is at present conducted. Under the 
circumstances supposed, all would probably admit that some 
change in the character of the instruction would be necessary. 

From the observed influence of manual training upon boys, 
and indirectly upon the parents, I am led to claim, that, when 
the last year of the grammar and the high schools includes 
manual training, they will meet a much wider demand ; that 
the education they afford will be really more valuable ; and, 
consequently, that the attendance of boys will be more than 
doubled. Add the manual elements, with their freshness and 
variety, their delightful shop exercises, their healthy intellectual 
and moral atmosphere, and the living reality of their work, and 
the hoys will stay in school. Such a result would be an unmixed 
good. I have seen boys doing well in a manual training school 
who could not have been forced to attend an ordinary school. 
If the city of Boston shall carry out this year, as I hope it 
will. Superintendent Seaver's plan for a public manual training 
school for three hundred boys, there will be, in my judgment, 
one thousand applications for admission during the first three 
years. 

2. Better Intellectual Development. — I am met here 
with the objection that I am aiming at an impossibility ; that, if 
I attempt to round out education by the introduction of manual 
training, to develop the creative or executive side, I shall 
certainly curtail it of elements more valuable still ; that the 
educational cup is now full ; and that, if I pour in my gross 
material notions on one side, some of the most precious intel- 
lectual fluid will certainly flow out on the other. 



Chap. Vni,]. UNBALANCED TRAINING TIRESOME. 205 

Now, I deny that the, introduction of manual training does 
of necessity force out any essential feature of mental and moral 
culture. The cup maj?^ be, and probably is, full to overflowing ; 
but it is a shrivelled and one-sided cup. It is as sensitive and 
active in its own defense as are the walls of the stomach, which, 
when overfed with ill-assorted food, contracts, rebels, and over- 
flows, but which expands and readily digests generous rations 
of a varied diet. 

The education of the hand is the means of more completely 
and efficaciously educating the brain. Manual dexterity is but 
the evidence of a certain kind of mental power ; and this mental 
power, coupled with a familiarity with the tools the hands use, 
is doubtless the only basis of that sound, practical judgment 
and ready mastery of material forces which always characterize 
those well fitted for the duties of active, industrial life. 

Intellectual growth is not to be gauged by the length or 
number of the daily recitations. I firmly believe that in most 
of our schools there is too much sameness and monotony, too 
much intellectual weariness and consequent torpor. Hence, if 
we abridge somewhat the hours given to books, and introduce 
exercises of a widely different character, the result is a positive 
intellectual gain. There is plenty of time if you will but use 
it aright. Throw into the fire those modern instruments of 
mental torture, — the spelling and defining books. Banish 
English grammar, and confine to reasonable limits geography 
and word-analysis. Take mathematics, literature, science, and 
art in just proportion, and you will have time enough for 
drawing and the study of tools and mechanical methods. 

No one can learn from a book the true force of technical 
terms and definitions, nor the properties of materials. All 
descriptive words and names must base their meaning upon 
our own consciousness of the things they signify. The obscuri- 
ties of the text-books (often doubly obscure from the lack of 
proper training on the part of the authors, who describe pro- 
cesses they never tried, and objects they never saw) vanish 
before the steady gaze of a boy whose hands and eyes have 
assisted in the building of mental images. 

Then, again, the habit of clear-headedness, of precision in 



206 THE FRUITS OF MANUAL TRAINING. [Chap. VIII. 

regard to the minor details of a subject (which is absolutely 
essential in the shop), an exact and experimental knowledge 
of the full force of the words and symbols used, stretches 
with its wholesome influence into the study of words and the 
structure of language. As Felix Adler says, the doing of one 
thing well is the beginning of doing all things well. I am a 
thorough disbeliever in the doctrine that it is ever educationally 
useful to commit to memory words which are not understood. 
The memory has its abundant uses, and should be carefully 
cultivated ; but when it usurps the place of the understanding, 
when it beguiles the mind into the habit of accepting the 
images of words for the images of the things the words stand 
for, then the memory becomes a positive hinderance to intel- 
lectual development.^ 

3. A MORE Wholesome Moral Education. — The finest 
fruit of education is character ; and the more complete and 
symmetrical, the more perfectly balanced the education, the 
choicer the fruit. 

To begin with, I have noted the good effect of occupation. 
The program of a manual training school has something to 
interest and inspire every boy. The daily session is six full 
hours, but I have never found it too long. The school is not 
a bore ; and holidays, except for the name of the thing, are un- 
popular. I have been forced to make strict rules to prevent 
the boys from crowding into the shops and drawing rooms on 
Saturdays and after school hours. There is little tendency, 

1 " Unintelligent memorizing is at best a most questionable educational method. 
For one, I utterly disbelieve in it. It never did me any thing but harm; and 
learning by heart the Greek grammar did me harm, — a great deal of harm. 
While I was doing it, the observing and reflective powers lay dormant; indeed, 
they were systematically suppressed; their exercise was resented as a sort of 
impertinence. We boys stood up and repeated long rules, and yet longer lists of 
exceptions to them; and it was drilled into us that we were not there to reason, but 
to rattle off something written on the blackboard of our minds. The faculties 
we had in common with the raven were thus cultivated at the expense of that 
apprehension and reason which, Shakespere tells us, makes man like the angels 
and God. And so, looking back from this standpoint of thirty years later, and 
thinking of the game which has now been lost or won, I silently listen to that 
talk about ' the severe intellectual training,' in which a parrot-like memorizing 
did its best to degrade boys to the level of learned dogs." — Chakles Francis 
Adams, Jr., Phi Beta Kappa Oration, 18S3. 



Chap. Vm.] MORAL EDUCATION. 207 

therefore, to stroll about, looking for excitement. The exer- 
cises of the day fill the mind with thoughts pleasant and 
profitable, at home and at night. A boy's natural passion for 
handling, fixing, and making things is systematically guided 
into channels instructive and useful, as parents freely relate. 

Again, success in one branch or study (shop exercises are 
marked like those of the recitation room) encourages effort in 
others, and the methods of the shop affect the whole school. 
Gradually the students acquire two most valuable habits, which 
are certain to influence their whole lives for good; namely, 
precision and method. As Professor Runkle says, " What- 
ever cultivates care, close observation, exactness, patience, and 
method must be valuable training and preparation for all 
studies and all pursuits." 

Dr. Adler has pointed out, with great force and elegance, the 
influence of the exercises of the shop upon the formation of 
character. This influence, he holds, will be " nothing short of 
revolutionary, inasmuch as it will help to overthrow many 
of the impure conceptions that prevail at the present day." 
The tasks we set are not to be judged by commercial standards ; 
our standard is one hundred per cent. The articles we make 
are not to be sold ; they have no pecuniary value ; they are 
merely typical forms ; their worth consists in being true or in 
being beautiful, as the case may be. 

The manual training school, when well conducted, seems to 
me to furnish to its pupils just the opportunity which Walter 
Scott, in Waverlei/, says that his young hero was losing for 
ever, — "the opportunity of acquiring habits of firm and assidu- 
ous application ; of gaining the art of controlling, directing, 
and concentrating the powers of his mind for earnest investi- 
gation, — an art far more essential than even that intimate 
acquaintance with classical learning which is the primary object 
of study " (at school). 

4. Sounder Judgivients of Men and Things. — The pro- 
verbially poor judgments of scholars have led to the popular 
belief that theory is one thing and practice a very different 
thing ; that theoretically a thing is one way, practically another. 
The truth is, that correct theory and practice agree perfectly.' 



208 THE FRUITS OF MANUAL TRAINING. [Chap. VHI. 

If in his theory one leaves out a single element of the problem, 
or fails to give each its due weight, his theory is false. The 
school-men have been so accustomed to living in an ideal world, 
the world of books and books only, where they have found 
only ideal problems, and they have been so ignorant of the real 
world and the conditions of real problems, that their solutions 
have very generally been false. 

A harmonious culture develops common-sense, and common- 
sense is at the basis of good judgment. We aim to raise that 
kind of fruit. Boys who put every theory to the practical test ; 
who know something about what the idealists call " the total 
depravity of inanimate things ; " who probe and test every 
statement and appliance ; with whom authority and tradition, 
the bane of too much "book-learning," have little influence, 
and who therefore are apt to take things at their true value, 
^are fitted to focus correctly upon the problenis of real 
life. 

We hear much, and with good reason, of the value of direc- 
tive intelligence. To be a director, one must have good judg- 
ment. He who would successfully direct the labor of other 
men must first learn the art of successful labor himself; and 
he who would direct a machine properly must understand the 
principles of its construction, and be personally skilled in the 
arts of preservation and repair. Dr. Harris, therefore, tells 
but a half-truth when he -.says that " the new discovery (the 
invention of a new tool) will make 'the trade learned to-day, 
after a long and tedious apprenticeship, useless to-morrow. 
The practical education, therefore, is not an education of the 
hand to skill, but of the brain to directive intelligence. The 
educated man can learn to direct a new machine in three 
weeks, while it requires three years to learn a new manual labor.''* 
(^Education, May-June, 1883.) 

This last sentence is not clear to me. Somehow it seems to 
imply that the man who learns to run a machine should be more 
intelligent, and require more education, than the man who 
made it. As to " directive intelligence," I respectfully submit 
the following as a substitute for the dictum of Mr. Harris : 
*'The practical education is, therefore, an education of the 



Chap.Vin.] CHOICE OF OCCUPATION. 209 

hand to skill and of the brain to intelligence. The combination 
will give the highest directive power." 

5. Better Choice of Occupations. — This point is one 
of the greatest importance, for out of it are the issues of life. 
An error here is often fatal. But to choose without knowledge 
is to draw as in a lottery ; and when boys know neither them- 
selves nor the world they are to live in, and when parents do 
not know their own children, it is more than an even chance 
that the square plug will get into the round hole. 

Parents often complain to me that their sons who have been 
to school all their lives have no choice of occupation, or that 
they choose to be accountants or clerks, instead of manufac- 
turers or mechanics. These complaints are invariably unrea- 
sonable ; for how can one choose at all, or wisely, when he 
knows so little ! Yet their decisions are natural. 

I confidently believe that the development of the manual 
elements in school will prevent those serious errors in the 
choice of a vocation which too often wreck the fondest hopes. 
It is not assumed that every boy who enters a manual training 
school is to be a mechanic ; his training leaves him free. No 
pupils were ever more unprejudiced, better prepared to look 
below the surface, less the victims of a false gentility. Some 
find that they have no taste for manual arts, and will turn into 
other paths, — law, medicine, or literature. Great facility in 
the acquisition and use of language is often accompanied by 
a lack of either mechanical interest or power. When such a 
bias is discovered, the lad should unquestionably be sent to 
his grammar and dictionary rather than to the laboratory or 
draughting-room. On the other hand, decided aptitude for 
handicraft is not unfrequently, coupled with a strong aversion 
to, and unfitness for, abstract and theoretical investigations, 
and especially for committing to memory. 

There can be no doubt that, in such cases, more time should 
be spent in the shop, and less in the lecture and recitation 
room. Some who develop both natural skill and strong intel- 
lectual powers will push on through the polytechnic school 
into professional life, as engineers and scientists. Others will 
find their greatest usefulness, as well as highest happiness. 



210 THE FEUITS OF MANUAL TBAINING. [Ohap. VIIL 

in some branch of mechanical work, into which they will 
readily step when they leave school. All will gain intellect- 
ually by their experience in contact with things. The grand 
result will be an increasing interest in manufacturing pur- 
suits, more intelligent mechanics, more successful manufac- 
turers, better lawyers, more skillful physicians, and" more useful 
citizens. 

In the past comparatively few of the better educated have 
sought the manual occupations. The one-sided training of the 
schools has divided active men into two classes, — those who 
have sought to live b'y the work of their own hands, and those 
who have sought to live by the work of other men's hands. 

Hitherto men who have aimed to cultivate their brains have 
neglected their hands ; and those who have labored with their 
hands have found no opportunity to specially cultivate their 
brains. The crying demand to-day is for intellectual combined 
with manual training. It is this want that the manual training 
school aims to supply. 

6. Material Success for the Individual and for the 
Community. — Material success ought not to be the chief 
object in life, tho it may be sought with honor, and worthily 
won ; in fact, success would appear to be inevitable to one who 
possesses health and good judgment, and who, having chosen 
his occupation wisely, follows it faithfully. This point might, 
then, be granted as a corollary to those already given and 
without further argument. 

Our graduates have been out of school less than a year, but 
I have seen enough to justify me in saying that their chances 
of material success are unusually good. As Avorkmen, they will 
soon step to the front. As employers and manufacturers, they, 
will be self-directing and eftjcient inspectors ; they will be 
little exposed to the wiles of incompetent workmen. 

On the other hand, communities will prosper when their 
young men prosper. This is the dynamic age ; the great forces 
of Nature are being harnessed to do our work, and we are just 
beginning to learn how to drive. Invention is in its youth, 
and manual training is the very breath of its nostrils. 

Some appear to think that the continued invention of tools 



Chap.Vm.] THE DIGNITY OF INTELLIGENT LABOR. 211 

and new machines will diminish the demand for men skilled in 
mechanical matters ; but they are clearly wrong. True, they 
will diminish the demand for unintelligent labor, — and some 
prominent educators, who take ground against manual training, 
have apparently no idea of labor except unintelligent labor. 
If there are more machines, there must be more makers, invent- 
ors, and directors. Not one useful invention in ten is made 
by a man who is not a skilled mechanic. But, as I have said, 
the mechanics have suffered from a one-sided education. They 
have paid too litle attention to science and the graphic arts. 
Hence every manual pursuit will become elevated in the intel- 
lectual scale when mechanics are broadly, liberally trained. 

7. The Elevation of Manual Occupations from the 
Realm of Brute, Unintelligent Labor to a Position 

REQUIRING AND REWARDING CULTIVATION AND SkILL. — A 

brute can exert brute strength : to man alone is it given to 
invent and use tools. Man subdues Nature and develops art 
through the instrumentality of tools. To turn a crank, or to 
carry a hod, one needs only muscular power. But to devise 
and build the light engine, which, under the direction of a 
single intelligent master-spirit, shall lift the burden of a hun- 
dred men, requires a high degree of intelligence and manual 
skill. So the hewers of wood and the drawers of water are in 
this age of invention replaced by saw and planing mills and 
water-works requiring some of the most elaborate embodiments 
of thought and skill. Can any one stand beside the modern 
drawers of water, the hiighty engines that day and night draw 
from the Father of Waters the abundant supply of a hundred 
thousand St. Louis homes, and not bow before the evidence of 
"cultured minds and skillful hands," written in unmistakable 
characters all over the vast machinery ? 

In like manner every occupation becomes ennobled by the 
transforming influence of thought and skill. The farmer of 
old yoked his wife with l>is cow, and together they dragged the 
clumsy plow or transported the scanty harvest. Down to fifty 
years ago the life of a farmer was associated with unceasing, 
stupefying toil. What will it be when every farmer's boy is 
properly educated and trained ? Farming is rapidly becoming 



212 THE FRUITS OF MANUAL TRAINING. [Ohap. Vin. 

a matter of horse-power, steam-power, and machinery. Who, 
then, shall follow the farm with honor, pleasure, and success? 
Evidently only he whose cultivated mind and trained hands 
make him a master of the tools he must use. With his bench 
and sharp-edged tools, with his forge and his lathe, and with 
his chemical laboratory, he will direct and sustain his farm 
with unparalleled efficiency. 

Here is where the influence of manual training will be most 
beneficial. It will bring into the manual occupations a new 
element, a fairly educated class, which Avill greatly increase 
their value, at the same time that it gives them new dignity. 

8. The Solution of Labor Problems. — Finally, I claim 
that the manual training school furnishes the solution of the 
problem of labor vs. capital. The new education will give 
more complete development, versatility, and adaptability to cir- 
cumstance. No liberally trained workman can be a slave to a 
method, or depend upon the demand for a particular article 
or kind of labor. It is only the uneducated, unintelligent 
mechanic who suffers from tlie invention of a new tool. The 
thoroughly trained mechanic enjoys the extraordinary advan- 
tage of being able, like the well-taught mathematician, to apply 
his skill to every problem ; with every new tool and new pro- 
cess he rises to new usefulness and worth. 

The leaders of mobs are not illiterate, but they are narrow, 
the victims of a one-sided education ; and their followers are the 
victims of a double one-sidedness. Give them a liberal train- 
ing, and you emancipate them alike from the tyranny of un- 
worthy leaders and the slavery of a vocation. The sense of 
hardship and wrong will never come, and bloody riots will 
cease, when workingmen shall have such intellectual, mechani- 
cal, and moral culture, that new tools, new processes, and new 
machines will only furnish opportunities for more culture, and 
add new dignity and respect to their calling. 

Note. — In May, 1886, 1 gave the following brief statement of the fruits 
of manual training, iii the Journal of Education : — 

The value of manual training, when properly combined with literary, 
scientific, and mathematical studies, will be shown in various ways. 



Chap. Vm.] THE LIFE-VALUE OF MANUAL TRAINING. 213 

1. Science and mathematics will profit from a better understanding of 
forms, materials, and processes, and from the readiness with which their 
principles may be illustrated. 

2. Without shop-work, drawing loses half its value. 

3. Correct notions of things, relations, and forces, derived from actual 
handling and doing, go far toward a just comprehension of language in 
geneial; that is, manual training cultivates the mechanical and scientific 
imagination, and enables one to see the force of metaphors in which physical 
terms are employed to express metaphysical truths. 

4. Manual training will stimulate a love for simplicity of statement, and 
a disposition to reject fine-sounding words whose meaning is obscure. 

5. It will awaken a lively interest in school, and invest dull subjects 
with new life. 

6. It will keep boys and girls out of mischief, both in and out of school. 

7. It will keep boys longer at school. 

8. It will give boys with strong mechanical aptitudes, and fondness for 
objective study, an equal chance with those of good memories for language. 

9. It will materially aid in the selection of occupations when school-life is 
over. 

10. It will enable an employer of labor to better estimate the comparative 
value of imskilled and skilled labor, and to exercise a higher consideration 
for the laboring man. 

11. It will raise the standards of attainments in mechanical occupations, 
and invest them with new dignity and worth. 

12. It will increase the bread-winning and home-making power of the 
average boy, who has his bread to win and his home to make. 

13. It will stimulate invention. The age of invention is yet to come, 
and manual training is the very breath of its nostrils. 

14. We shall enjoy the extraordinary advantage of having lawyers, 
journalists, and politicians with more correct views of social and national 
conditions and problems. 

To the above I will now add : — 

15. It will help to prevent the growth of a feeling of contempt for manual 
occupations and for those who live by manual labor. 

16. It will to a certain extent readjust social standards in the interest of 
true manliness and intrinsic worth. 

17. It will accelerate the progress of civilization by greatly diminishing 
the criminal and pauper classes, which are largely made up of those who are 
neither willing nor able to earn an honest living. 

18. It will show itself in a hundred ways in the future homes of our 
present pupils : on the one hand, in the convenience and economy of useful 
appliances ; on the other, in evidences of good taste in mattei-s of grace and 
beauty. 



214 A FEATURE IN GENERAL EDUCATION. [ohap. IZ. 



CHAPTER IX. 

MANUAL TRAINING A FEATURE IN GENERAL 
EDUCATION. 1 

"\"T"7"ITH wonderful unanimity the educational forces of 
▼ » America are facing in the new direction. Formal 
education is much broader than of old, and the methods and 
materials used are so new or so changed, that we call the result 
the 

NEW EDUCATION. 

It is scarcely necessary to add that the " new " education 
includes the "old." We tear down no essential parts of the 
old temple, but we have added at least two wings which were 
needed to make a symmetrical whole. The natural science 
wing brings in a whole world of new material, and a totally 
new method of developing ideas. The other wing is that of 
manual training, including a variety of drawing and the intelli- 
gent use of a large range of typical tools and materials. 

" Man," says Carlyle, " is a tool-using animal. He can use 
tools, can devise tools ; with these the granite mountains melt 
into light dust before him ; he kneads glowing iron as if it were 
soft paste ; seas are his smooth highway, winds and fire his 
unwearying steeds. Nowhere do you find him without tools : 
without tools, he is nothing ; with tools, he is all." 

You know how bird-trainers teach a canary to sing a particu- 
lar tune. The poor bird is put in a dark place, where he can 
see nothing of interest, and then compelled to hear the tune 
and nothing else. Even a bird is constrained to a certain 
amount of intellectual activity, and in sheer desperation he 

1 An address delivered before the Social Science Association of Philadelphia, 
in December, 1885. 



Chap. K.] ONE-SIDED TRAINING. 215 

sings the only thing he is allowed to think of. Have we not 
been training our boys too much on the same plan? In our 
anxiety to keep out every thing low and sordid, we have kept 
out the influence of the working world as much as possible. 
We have striven to make artists rather than artisans, officers 
rather than privates, essayists rather than craftsmen. Instead 
of teaching how to get a good living as the sine qua non of 
useful, independent citizenship, we have assumed the good living 
and have taught how to improve its advantages. We have 
walled in the vision of our pupils till they could look only in 
certain directions, see certain activities, study certain forms of 
mental life. Half the occupations of men, lialf the domains 
of knowledge, many of the means and ends of intellectual 
culture, much that is specially favorable to moral and spiritual 
growth, are beyond their horizon. Need any one be surprised 
at the result of such seclusion ? Like the bird, they learn 
certain tongues, they master certain arts, they become familiar 
with a certain limited round of intellectual life. There is little 
freedom of choice or chance for liberal growth. They must, 
perforce, travel certain paths. And later on they think, and 
for the most part with good reason, that to use their education 
— by which they mean their book knowledge — they must 
go into the counting-room, become salesmen, or go into the 
"learned professions." In avoiding, with almost perfect una- 
nimity, the mechanic arts, they do not make an intelligent 
choice; they follow only an ignorant prejudice. Now, this evil 
of narrowness, this "violation " of the "rights" of children, as 
Prof. Felix Adler c^Clls it, is what we are trying to cure by the 
introduction of the manual elements. 

EXCELLENCE OF OUR COMMON SCHOOLS. 

Let me be just to the bridge that has brought us over, to 
the ladder we have ourselves climbed. The schools need no 
defender, — they speak for themselves. To the j)ublic schools 
of Massachusetts, I owe more than I can ever pay. From the 
door of a country high school I stepped up to the college gate, 
as thousands of boys have done since. Far be it from me to 
say an unkind or disloyal word of the common-school system. 



216 A FEATURE IN GENERAL EDUCATION. [Ohap. IX. 

The schools of America are the brightest jewel in her crown, 
the sure anchor of her hope. 

But does not the world move? Does it not become the 
schoolmaster to keep step to the notes of progress? Shall 
the demands of the age greatly change ? shall we depart 
widely from the ways of our fathers in every thing else, in 
our industries, our amusements, in the circumstances and sur- 
roundings of our homes, and yet make no change in the con- 
tent of our school education? That the education afforded has 
in the main been judicious and fairly complete, I do not call in 
question. 

While I think it altogether probable that throughout all 
grades there is too much of committing to memory the words, 
statements, and conclusions of others, as mere facts to be re- 
membered for their own sake, and too little practice in getting 
at knowledge for one's self and drawing one's own conclusions, 
under the guidance, but not at the command, of the teacher, 
I shall confine my remarks to-night to what we are doing, or 
ought to do, for boys from the age of thirteen to seventeen 
or eighteen. Much that is serviceable for boys is equally so 
for the girls ; much has yet to be done in developing the details 
for young children. I insist that some manual training should 
run through the entire course. The necessary appliances for 
the primary and grammar grades are simple and few ; the 
most essential thing being teachers, into whose preparatory 
training manual elements have entered in their due propor- 
tion. By the eighth or ninth year of school life, the pupils 
are ready for the systematic and comprehensive work ^ I will 
now give in outline. 

THE DAILY PROGRAM OF THE MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. 

The school-time of the pupils is about equally divided be- 
tween mental and manual exercises. The daily session begins 
at 9 A.M, and closes at 3.30 p.m., thirty minutes being allowed 
for lunch. Each pupil has daily three recitations, one hour of 
drawing and penmanship, and two hours of shop-practice. 



Chap. IX.] PUT THE WHOLE BOY TO SCHOOL. 217 



THE COURSE OF INSTRUCTION 

covers three years, and embraces five parallel lines, — three 
purely intellectual, and two both intellectual and manual, — as 
follows : — 

First., A course of pure mathematics, including arithmetic, 
algebra, geometry, and plane trigonometry. 

Second., A course in science and applied mathematics, includ- 
ing physical geography, botany, natural philosophy, chemistry, 
mechanics, mensuration, and book-keeping. 

Third, A course in language and literature, including Eng- 
lish grammar, spelling, composition, literature, history, and the 
elements of political science and economy. Latin and French 
are introduced as electives with English or science. 

Fourth., A course in penmanship, free-hand and mechanical 
drawing. 

Fifth, A course of tool instruction, including carpentry, 
wood-turning, molding, brazing, soldering, forging, and bench 
and machine work in metals. 

Students have no option or election as to particular studies, 
except as regards Latin and French ; each must conform to the 
course as laid down, and take every branch in its order. 

A BROADER EDUCATION. 

You will see, then, that we have no mean or narrow object. 
*' The education which the manual training school represents is 
a broader, and not, as the opponents of the new education 
assert, a narrower education." We put the whole boy to school, 
not a part of him, and we train him by the most invigorating 
and logical methods. We believe that mental activity and 
growth are closely allied to phjsical activity and growth, and 
that each is secured more readily and more fully in connection 
with the other than by itself. 

There can be no question as to the value of language and 
letters, of books and literary methods, in general education. 
No science can exist without letters. We only insist that 
neither as an end nor as a means does literature, even with the 



218 A FEATURE IN GENERAL EDUCATION. [Chap. II. 

aid of pure mathematics, supply more than half the needs of 
a healthy education.^ 

LITERARY AND SCIENCE CULTURE. 

Pure literature is a matter of books alone. It deals with 
words and symbols, and is concerned only with the forms of 
verbal expression. The thought expressed may belong to any 
department of science or philosophy ; to psychology, botany, or 
metaphysics ; to religion, history, technology, or art : the form 
belongs to literature, and it may be in the language of any 
people. The matter of form is in the realm of authority, and 
every thing is settled by an appeal to authorities.^ The con- 
ventions of society are such that too often education is gauged 
b}^ the amount of literary culture involved. We are the slaves 

1 " A literary training is not the best preparation for the pursuits in which a 
large proportion of the population are now engaged. . . . This [literarj'] training 
is the survival of a method well enough adapted at one time to those who alone 
received education [i.e. the English gentry and the nobility], but unintentionally 
extended to other classes, who, on account of the difference of their pursuits, 
require a totally different system of education." — Sir Philip Magnus, Report 
of the Education Conference, London, 1884, vol. ii. p. 5. 

Sir Philip was a member of the Royal Commission on Technical Instruction, 
and its report was largely written by him. It is interesting to note that, after a 
very thorough examination of the question of the best preliminary education for 
higher technical instruction at home and abroad, and especially in Germany, 
where a body of university professors had recently pronounced against the real 
schools and in favor of the gymnasia, he conies to tlie conclusion that a curricu- 
lum consisting of mathematics and practical science (including workshop instruc- 
tion), drawing, English language and literature, French, German, geography, and 
history is the best preparation for the higher technical instruction. 

" But," he adds, — and here he touches on one of the reasons for the compara- 
tive unpopularity of the ' modern side ' schools, viz., incompetent teachers, — " in 
order that it may yield the same mental discipline and intellectual advantages 
which a boy may get at one of our first-grade public [endowed] schools [like 
Rugby, Eton, Charterhouse, etc.], under the alternative classical training, the 
masters who are to teach science must be men of the same cultivated order as 
those under whose direction our public schools are now placed." — Ibid. 

" So long as primary education is literary instead of real, and so long as there 
is a gulf fixed between primary and secondary education, technical instruction 
will continue to be a sort of parasitic off-shoot, like the misletoe." — Editor of 
London Journal of Education, June 1, 1887. 

2 I am well aware that there are many who define literature differently. 
Taine says that a book belongs to literature in so far as it expresses beauty, 
sweetness, purity, or emotions of any sort; in so far as it illustrates the action of 
forces, it belongs to science. John Burroughs says that the province of literature 
is sentiment and imagination, while science deals with demonstrable facts. John 



Chap. IX.] AET VERSUS LITERARY CULTURE. 219 

of fashion in education as well as in dress, and often fear to 
claim for other kinds of culture, as useful, as humane, as invig- 
orating, as broadly healthful, as that of letters, the value and 
dignity they really possess. In defence of the new education, 
it has been said that " the intellectual culture of active art is 
far more vigorous than that of literature. In literary culture, 
we feebly and indefinitely grasp ideas by their association with 
printed words. There is no life, no force in the object of our 
study. In industrial art, we are continually stimulated by the 
presence of the object, and the operations we are performing ; 
and our perceptions are clear, positive, and exact. The concen- 
trated attention, the close observation, the ingenuity, invention, 
and judgment in use in art are far superior as mental discipline 
to any that literature can give." ^ 

The study of science in the new education involves both 
new materials and new methods. The unfruitfulness of all 
attempts to teach a child science, in which at first there should 
be no such thing as authority, from a book, as would be the 



Morley claims that not only the form, but the substance of history, politics, 
psychology, ethics, art, and religion belong to literature. 

When we consider the number and importance of the demonstrable facts there 
are in politics, psychology, ethics, art, and religion, we shall realize how far these 
enthusiastic literateurs differ in defining their domains. 

1 Prof. Bain says, " The impression made on the mind by the actual objects, as 
seen, handled, and operated upon, is far beyond the efficacy of words or descrip- 
tion." Sir Philip Magiuis thus speaks of the pupils of Finsbury College who 
entered on an examination chiefly literary: "Great difficulty has been experi- 
enced in getting students fo properly observe and interpret the results of their 
experiments; and it has been only too apparent that their previous education has 
done little to develop their reasoning powers." 

In a lecture delivered before the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Canon 
Farrar, the distinguished author and philologist, a master of Harrow, and for 
thirteen years a classical teacher, thus avows " his deliberate opinion, arrived at 
in the teeth of the strongest possible bias and prejudice in the opposite direction, 
— arrived at with the fullest possible knowledge of every single argument which 
may be urged on the other side," — "I must avow my distinct conviction that 
our present system of exclusively classical education, as a whole, and carried on 
as we do carry it on, is a deplorable failure. I say it knowing that the words are 
strong words, but not without liaving considered them well; I say it because that 
system has been ' weighed in the balance and found wanting.' It is no epigram, 
but a simple fact, to say that classical education neglects all the powers of some 
minds, and some of the powers of all minds." He regrets especially the "dead- 
ening" elfect on the sensibilities of burdening the memory with unmeaning and 
useless words. 



220 A FEATURE IN GENERAL EDUCATION. [chap. IX. 

case for a language where authority is every thing, has pro- 
duced a revolution in science teaching. But the scieiice labo- 
ratory is a workshop as well, and success there depends in part 
upon manual skill in the use of tools, in mechanical processes, 
and in the graphic arts. Moreover, we believe that healthy 
growth is always pleasurable, whether of mind or body. We 
believe that it is no more necessary to give the mind disa- 
greeable, Avearisome, unintelligible exercises, than it is to give 
the bod}^ disgusting, ill-assorted, indigestible food. Did 3^ou 
ever see children so weary of books that study Avas impossible ? 
Did you ever see one whose mind was nauseated with spelling- 
books, lexicons, and grammars, and an endless hash of words 
and definitions ? And did you, in such a case, call in the two 
doctors, Johann Pestalozzi and Friedrich Froebel? And did 
you watch the magic influence of a diet of things prescribed by 
the former in the place of words, and a little vigorous practice 
in doing, in the place of talking, under the direction of the 
latter ? 

When the limit of sharp attention and lively interest is 
reached, you have reached the limit of profitable study. If you 
can hold the attention of a class but ten minutes, it is worse 
than a waste of time to make the exercise fifteen. The weary 
intellects will roll themselves Up in self-defence, and suffer as 
patiently as they can ; but the memory of those moments of 
torture lingers and throws its dreadful shadow over the exer- 
cise as it comes up again on the morrow. And how automati- 
cally, as these over-taught children take their places again, do 
they roll themselves up into an attitude of mental stupidity ! 
Intellectual growth is not to be gauged by the length or num- 
ber of the daily recitations. I firmly believe that in most of 
our schools there is too much sameness and monotony, too 
much intellectual weariness and consequent torpor. 

A moment's reflection will convince you that the ordinary 
secondary school, whether high* school or academy, does not 
meet the general want of thirteen- and fifteen-year-old boys. 
The curriculum of studies is laid out for that very limited class 
of pupils who are destined, or self-selected without intelligent 
choice, for literary or professional life. With all that work I 



Chap. IX.] TRAINING IS MORE THAN MEMORY. 221 

have no wish to interfere. I would even raise all professional 
and literary standards. I would incorporate with their study 
of classics and mathematics and authoritative science such a 
manual training as would' make them better literary and pro- 
fessional men. 

MUCH MORE THAN MEMORY. 

But I would do much more. I would make school attractive 
and indispensable to a large class of boys, whose controlling 
interests are not in the study of words, the forms of speech, or 
the boundless mass of information which is given in books ; 
and I would give such boys a fair chance of adequate develop- 
ment. Such boys are not necessarily blockheads, nor even dull. 
Their intellectual powers may be strong, though their strength 
lies not in the direction of memory. The claims of this class 
of boys have been set forth by no one so eloquently as by Gen, 
Francis A. Walker. Says he, and I give almost his exact 
words : "• There is now no place, or only a most uncomfortable 
one, for those boys who are strong in perception, apt in manipu- 
lation, and correct in the interpretation of phenomena, but who 
are not good at memorizing, or rehearsing the opinions and 
statements of others ; or who, by their diffidence or slowness of 
speech, are unfitted for ordinary intellectual gymnastics. These 
boys are quite as numerous as the other sort, and are quite as 
deserving of sympathy and respect, beside being rather better 
qualified to become of use in the industrial and social order. 
And yet for this class of boys the school offers almost nothing 
upon which they can employ their priceless powers. They 
may, by laboring very painfully over the prescribed but uncon- 
genial exercises, escape the stigma of being blockheads ; but 
they can never do very well in them. They will always appear 
to disadvantage when compared with the boys with good memo- 
ries for words, whose mental and moral natures accept with 
pleasure or without serious question the statements and conclu- 
sions of others. Such boys are practically plowed under in 
our schools, as not worth harvesting. And yet it not infre- 
quently happens that the boy who is regarded as dull because 
he cannot master an artificial system of grammatical analysis, 



222 A FEATURE IN GENERAL EDUCATION. [Ohap. IX. 

isn't worth a cent for giving a list of the kings of England, 
who doesn't know and doesn't care what are the principal pro- 
ductions of Borneo, — has a better pair of eyes, a better pair of 
hands, a better judgment, and, even by the standards of the 
merchant, the manufacturer, and the railroad president, a better 
head, than his master." 

Now the manual training school proposes to cultivate and 

HARVEST BOTH KINDS OF BOYS. 

As Col. Jacobson says, "Manual training means not fewer, 
but more, ladies and gentlemen to the acre." 

There comes a time in the life of every boy when he craves 
with an irresistible appetite what may be called food for his 
physical nature ; when the senses are most acute ; when he is 
exquisitely conscious of his growing strength, his increasing 
power over the external world ; when his budding manhood 
opens the door into the great workshop of Nature, and he is 
satisfied with nothing less than actual contact with concrete 
forms and tangible forces. 

At this period the records of the past have little interest for 
a healthy boy. He must feel and act for himself; he must turn 
the key with his own hands, and himself unbar the gates. He 
has no natural appetite to destroy ; he destroys because he 
can not create. He can destroy without being taught how ; 
but how to build, how to construct, how to execute, — these 
require instruction, training, sj'stem, and they yield the keener 
pleasure. 

The boy demands reasons ; and arbitrary, unmeaning rules 
are extremely distasteful. Until he has a basis of personal 
physical experience with which he may digest the experience of 
others, books have little meaning and are of little value. 

Then is the time to give him manual training. Give him his 
saw, plane, and chisel. Give him his lathe, his forge, and anvil. 
Give him his blow-pipe and crucible, his magnet and his engine, 
and teach him their logic and their power. His mind will 
absorb them all with infinite relish. In their forms and uses 
he will read the thoughts of men for many generations. 

Do not be anxious lest he have no opportunity to develop 



Chap. IX.J THE CRAVINGS OF A HEALTHY BOY. 223 

literary taste. There is not a single influence flowing from 
manual training which is hostile to good books. Our graduates 
are hungry for good books, and they profit by them. 

Hence, if we abridge, in some cases, the hours given to books 
and the time wasted in idleness, and introduce exercises of a 
widely different character, the result is a positive intellectual 
gain. There is plenty of time if you will but use it aright. 
The students of a well-conducted manual training school are 
intellectually as active and vigorous as in any high school. 
Nay, more, I claim — and I have had good opportunity to ob- 
serve the facts — that even on the intellectual side the manual 
training boy has a decided advantage. I have been in charge 
of both kinds of schools, and I know whereof I speak. The 
education of the hand is the means of more completely and 
efficaciously educating the brain. 

INTELLECTUAL VALUE. 

Manual exercises, which are at the same time intellectual 
■exercises, are highly attractive to healthy boys. If you doubt 
this, go into the shops of a nianual training school and see for 
yourselves. Go, for instance, into our forging-shop, where 
metals are wrought through the agency of heat. A score of 
young Vulcans, bare-armed, leather-aproned, with many a drop 
of honest sweat, stand up to their anvils with an unconscious 
earnestness which shows how much they enjoy their work. 
What are they doing ? They are using brains and hands. 
They are studying definitions in the only dictionary which 
really defines. Where else can they learn the meaning of such 
words as "iron," "steel," "welding," "tempering," "upset- 
ting," "chilling," etc.? And in the shop where metals are 
wrought cold (which, for want of a better name, we call our 
machine-shop), every new exercise is like a delightful trip into 
a new field of thought and investigation. Every exercise, if 
prop^erly conducted, is both mental and manual. Every tool 
used, and every process followed, has its history, its genesis, its 
evolution. Says Supt. Seaver of Boston : " Manual training 
is essential to the right and full development of the human 
mind, and therefore no less beneficial to those who are not 



224 A FEATURE IN GENERAL EDUCATION. [Chap. II. 

going to become artisans than to those who are. The workshop 
method of instruction is of great educational value, for it brings 
the learner face to face with the facts of nature ; his mind in- 
creases in knowledge by direct personal experience with forms 
of matter, and manifestations of force. No mere words inter- 
vene. The manual exercises of the shop train mental power^ 
rather than load the memory ; they fill the mind with the solid 
merchandise of knowledge, and not with its empty packing-cases.'* 

Supt. Dowel, of the Toledo public schools, says : " It is cer- 
tainly true that the training of the manual training school lets 
in a flood of light upon a thousand things but imperfectly 
understood before." 

Manual dexterity is but the evidence of a certain kind of 
mental power. Certain intellectual faculties, such as observa- 
tion and judgment in inductive reasoning, can not be properly 
trained except through the instrumentality of the hand. The 
proverbial caution of the practical manipulator, and his distrust 
of mere theory, — which means reasoning based on assumed, 
not real, facts, — show how unsafe is reasoning not founded on 
the closest observation and intimate knowledge of the facts of 
nature. 

A manual training school does not stop with the training of 
the hand. Physical dexterity is but one, and the very least, 
of the many things sought ; and this is sought more as a means 
than as an end. The great end is education, — the develop- 
ment of the mind and body, the simultaneous culture of the 
intellectual, physical, and moral faculties. We believe in the 
study of 

THINGS FIRST, THEIR SYMBOLS SECOND. 

I am almost ready to say, " Confusion to the memory of Sam 
Johnson ! " for, since he started the fashion of making dictiona- 
ries, pupils have been set to learn about substances, products, 
and processes from dictionaries rather than from things them- 
selves. 

The first step of the new education was the introduction of 
explanatory pictures and diagrams in the books studied and 
read. This was a great gain, and many of our illustrated text- 



Chap. IX.] THE LABORATORY METHOD. 225 

books are to-day marvels of excellence. As books, thej leave 
little to be desired. But, neither alone nor with pictures, can 
words supply the want of things themselves. Next came the 
introduction of apparatus and models which the teacher could 
handle and show to his pupils, and sometimes, if he knew how, 
could use before them. The lecture method was another im- 
portant gain, and it has accomplished much good. The diffi-' 
culties attending it, however, have been such as to prevent its 
general adoption, and its use has been limited to schools of 
high grade. 

The next step, and the one we are now taking, is the adop- 
tion of 

THE LABORATORY, 

the putting of things, materials, apparatus, tools, and machines 
into the hands of the pupils themselves, and giving them a con- 
scious knowledge of properties, relations, and processes. ^ This 
is the crowning feature in education. It is manifest on the one 
side in the kindergarten ; on the other, in the physical, chemical, 
and dynamic laboratories ; while between the two come the 
shops and laboratories and drawing rooms of the manual train- 
ing school. In this last-named school we strive to get the benefit 
of all the progress made. We aim to have the best text-books, 
the best illustrations, the best apparatus, the best shop and tools, 
and the best teachers.^ 

1 As Mr. Fiske says in his Destiny of Man (chap, vii.) : "In a very deep sense 
all human science is but the increment of the power of the eye, and all human 
art is the increment of the power of the hand. Vision and manipulation — these, 
in their countless and transfigured forms, are the two co-operating factors in all 
intellectual progress." 

2 " The old method [of education] occupied itself mainly with the studj^ of 
language; the new method passed beyond language to the study of the actual 
phenomena of nature. The old method has for its end lingual accomplishments; 
the new method, a real knowledge of the charactefs and relations of natural 
things. The old method trains the verbal memory, and the reason, so far as it 
is exercised in transposing thought from one form of expression to another; the 
new method cultivates the powers of observation and the faculty of reasoning 
upon the objects of experience, so as to educate the judgment in dealing with the 
problems of life. The old method left uncultivated whole tracts of the mind that 
are of supreme importance in gaining a knowledge of the actual properties and 
principles of things which are fundamental in our progressive civilization; the 
new method begins with the systematic cultivation of these neglected mental 
powers." — Dr. E. L. Youmans in Popular Science Monthly, 1883, 



226 A FEATURE IN GENERAL EDUCATION. [Ohap, IX. 

Milton recognized but five professions open to educated 
youth ; viz., those of the theologian, the lawyer, the statesman, 
the soldier, and the gentleman, — the last being defined by him 
as one "who retires himself to the enjoyments of ease and 
luxury." On the other hand, J. Scott Russell, one of the first 
of England's educated and practical men, enumerates in his 
plan of an English technical university, after excluding the- 
ology, law, and medicine, twenty-two modern professions, for 
which, in some way, education is to be provided. 

MODERN PROFESSIONS. 

It was formerly supposed that the manufacturer, the miner, 
the builder of houses or bridges or ships, the millwright, the 
farmer, the man of commerce, etc., needed no education beyond 
that gained by actual work at his trade or desk. Now, how- 
ever, such strides have been taken in all these callings, through 
the application of the principles of modern science, that none 
but carefully trained and educated men can expect to secure 
and keep places of honor and profit in them. 

Now, without neglecting to train our lawyers, engineers, and 
physicians, literary men and gentlemen of leisure, should we 
not at least as directly aim to train these other men for their 
work? 

We want an education that shall develop the whole man. 
All his intellectual, moral, and physical powers should be drawn 
out, and trained and fitted for doing good service in the battle 
of life. We want 

WISE HEADS AND SKILLFUL HANDS. 

There has been a growing demand, not only for men of 
knowledge, but for men of skill, in every department of human 
activity. Have our schools and colleges and universities been 
equal to the demand ? Are we satisfied, with what they have 
produced ? 

There is a wide conviction of the inutility of schooling for 
the great mass of children beyond the primary grades, and this 
conviction is not limited to any class or grade of intelligence. 
According to the report of the president of the Chicago school 



Chap. IX.] WISE HEADS AND SKILLFUL HANDS. 227 

board, about one and one-eighth per cent of the boys in the 
public schools are in the high schools. From his figures it 
appears, that, if every boy in the Chicago public schools should 
extend his schooling through a high school, the four classes of 
the high schools would contain some nine thousand boys ; in 
point of fact, they have aboiit four hundred. Has the school 
board of Chicago done its full duty to the eighty-six hundred 
boys who are old enough to be in the high schools, and yet are 
not there ? 

If a manual training school could draw in four hundred more 
of them, would it not be worth the doing ? I think it would 
a hundred times over. 

From the observed influence of manual training upon boys, 
and indirectly upon the parents, I am led to claim, that, when 
the last year of the grammar and the high schools includes 
manual training, they will meet a wider demand ; that the 
education they afford will be really more valuable, and conse- 
quently that the attendance of boys will be more than doubled. 
Add the manual elements with their freshness and variety, their 
delightful shop exercise, their healthy intellectual and moral 
atmosphere, and the living reality of their work, and the boys 
will stay in school. Such a result would be an unmixed good. 
I have seen boys doing well in a manual training school, who 
could not have been forced to attend an ordinary school. 

I well know how firmly fixed is the present curriculum of 
study in the secondary schools, by how many traditions it is 
supported, and how unfamiliar and strange the manual elements 
appear to our present corps of teachers. 

But let me assure them that the manual exercises are in no 
way demoralizing. Everj^ shop and drawing room, like every 
other laboratory, is a part of the school. Boys go from mathe- 
matics to shop, and from shop to Latin or English, as naturally 
as from mathematics direct to Latin. Shop- work is not play, 
though nineteen out of twenty boys enjoy it as heartily. All 
the work is logically arranged, and simultaneous class exercises 
are rigidly insisted on. The difficulties of keeping a class 
together are no greater than they are in physics and chemistry. 

Some of the things said about us are marked by a great lack 



228 A ^FEATURE IN GENERAL EDUCATION. [chap. II. 

of appreciation of our methods and results. For instance, an 
Illinois professor said, a few years ago, that hammering wood 
was such a different matter from hammering iron, that not only 
was skill in one branch of no value in the other, but that it 
was a positive hinderance. At once the argument was caught 
up by the opponents of manual training, and we were enter- 
tained by learned discussions of the various arts of hammering 
by those who really knew nothing about them. It is as though 
one should insist that a knowledge of French is a hinderance to 
the learning of Spanish, or a knowledge of Latin an obstacle 
to the mastery of Greek. It is asserted that there can be no 
such thing as a general training in the use of tools, and they 
point to the cramped muscles and unintelligent automatonism 
of a man, who for years has headed pins or stamped small 
pieces of tin, as exhibiting the baneful effects of manual train- 
ing ! Is it possible that such people know what we mean by 
manual training ? 

THE HABIT OF THINKING. 

Can they be aware that, in no American manual training 
school (and there are no such schools in France or Germany or 
Russia), is the number of hours devoted to the entire series of 
wood-working tools over four hundred ? that the stage of me- 
chanical habit is never reached ? that the only habit actually 
acquired is that of thinking ? that no blow is struck, no line 
drawn, no motion regulated, from muscular habit? that the 
quality of every act springs from the conscious will accom- 
panied by a definite act of judgment ? Can such a limited 
training produce a high degree of manual skill ? Of course 
not. We have distinctly stated that our pupils do not become 
skilled mechanics, nor do we teach them the full details of a 
single trade. The tools whose theory, care, and use we teach 
are representative ; and the processes, which we teach just far 
enough to make every step clear and experimentally under- 
stood, equally underlie a score of trades. I say experimentally 
understood ; by which I mean that it is not enough to know 
that a certain outline is to be produced, or a certain adaptation 
is to be secured, but one must know just the force to be 



€hap. IX.] OBJECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 229 

directed, just the motions needed, and in their order, and all 
as the result of the closest attention and steady intellectual 
activity. 

What, then, is this so-called manual training but continuous 
mental discipline ? I have already spoken of the mental effect 
of science study. I claim equally beneficial effects for the 
thoughtful study of the theory and use of the tools which are 
the product of ages of human experience. 

OBJECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 

The object of the introduction of manual training is not to 
make mechanics. I have said that many times, and I find con- 
tinual need of repeating the statement. We teach banking, 
• not because we expect our pupils to become bankers ; and we 
teach drawing, not because we expect to train architects or 
artists or engineers ; and we teach the use of tools, the prop- 
erties of materials, and the methods of the arts, not because 
we expect our boys to become artisans. We teach them the 
United States Constitution and some of the Acts of Congress, 
not because we expect them all to become congressmen. But 
we do expect that our boys will at least have something to do 
with bankers, and architects, and artists, and engineers, and 
artisans ; and we expect all to become good citizens. Oar great 
object is educational: other obje.cts are secondary. That indus- 
trial results will surely follow, I have not the least doubt ; but 
they will take care of themselves. Just as a love for the beau- 
tiful follows a love for the true, and as the high arts can not 
thrive except on the firm foundation of the low ones, so a higher 
and finer development of all industrial standards is sure to 
follow a rational study of the underlying principles and meth- 
ods. Every object of attention put into the schoolroom should 
be put there for two reasons, — one educational, the other 
economic. Training, culture, skill, come first ; knowledge about 
persons, things, places, customs, tools, methods, comes second. 
It is only by securing both objects that the pupil gains the 
great prize, which is power to deal successfully with the men, 
things, and activities which surround him. 



230 A FEATURE IN GENERAL EDUCATION. [chap. IX.. 



THE ECONOMIC VALUE. 

Now, one word more on the secondary object, the economic. 
Some have not only failed to recognize the great educational 
value of manual training, but they have, as it seems to me, 
taken a too narrow view of its economic bearing. For instance, 
in analyzing the economic value of our shop-work and drawing. 
Dr. Harris does not appear to think them of value to the farmer. 
Remember, it is not proposed to substitute manual training for 
any of the schooling the farmer's boy now receives. I cheer- 
fully grant that all he gets is of value. I say, add the manual 
training to his present curriculum. Will he not be the better 
farmer ? Will it be of value to him to know how to repair a 
window, to hang a door, to plan and frame and erect a barn, to 
mend his plow or harrow, to supply a bolt or nut or a miss- 
ing link on his reaper or mowing-machine, or to keep in order 
a windmill or a farm-wagon? You will surely agree with me, 
that, to be successful, a farmer must join the skillful hand to 
the cultured mind. I could tell you of many instances in 
which my own graduates have astonished the natives by step- 
ping forward on an Illinois farm, in the presence of half a 
score of able-bodied men, and speedily mending a break which 
had threatened to entail a half-day's idleness for the whole 
force. 

I recently heard of a successful dentist in New York, who 
attributed his success to the training he had received when a 
boy in a general repair-shop. Again, a noted surgeon says that 
his ability to make his own tools was the basis of his success. 
A graduate of mine went into a factory for turning corn-cob 
pipes and stems, in Washington, Mo. In a few days he ranked 
with any of the fifty men in the shop. Then he saw a possible 
improvement in the tools to be used. With a new tool, which 
he made himself, he was able soon to about double his pro- 
ductive power. 

The habit of working on an exact plan, of analyzing an 
apparently complicated operation into a series of simple steps, 
enables one to solve many a new problem, even with new mate- 
rial and under entirelv novel circumstances. 



Chap. IX,] INTELLECTUAL HONESTY. 231 



THE MORAL INFLUENCE. 

A word in regard to the moral effect of our combination. 
Its influence is wholesome in three ways : — 

1. It stimulates a love for intellectual honesty. It deals 
with the substance, as well as with the shadow ; it gives oppor- 
timity for primitive judgments ; it shows in the concrete, in the 
most unmistakable form, the vast difference between right and 
wrong ; it substitutes personal experience and the use of simple, 
forcible language, for the experience of others expressed in high- 
sounding phrase. It associates the deed with the thought, the 
real with the ideal, and lays the foundation for honesty in 
thought and in act. 

2. The good moral effect of occupation is most marked. No 
boys were ever so busy as ours, in school and out. Every 
strong, health}' appetite finds its appropriate food. The variety 
of the daily program, far from confusing, produces a balance 
of healthy interests ; and not only the boy's time, but his 
thoughts, are devoted to the work of the school. The corre- 
lation of drawing and shop-work with science and mathematical 
studies is exceedingly helpful on both sides, and parents testify 
to the absorption of our pupils in their work. Mothers and 
sisters are never tired of telling of the great convenience of 
having in the house one who has common sense enough to use 
the universal tools and to keep things in order. The hands are 
rarely idle enough to allow the devil to get in his mischievous 
work. 

3. A third moral benefit is self-respect and a respect for 
honest, intelligent labor. A boy who sees nothing in manual 
labor but mere brute force despises both the labor and the 
laborer. To him all hand-work is drudgery, and all men who 
use their hands are to him equally uncultivated and unattrac- 
tive. With the acquisition of skill in himself comes a pride in 
its possession, and the ability and willingness to recognize it 
in his fellows. When once he appreciates skill in handicraft or 
in any manual art, he regards the possessor of it with sympathy 
and respect. 

Without going into the perplexing questions of labor and 



232 A FEATURE IN GENERAL EDUCATION. [Ohap. IX. 

capital, I feel sure that the only way to prevent such conflicts 
in the future is to properly train the children of the present 
generation. The men who make up mobs are deficient in either 
mental or manual training, or both. They never had a chance 
to get both side by side in a public or private school. 

DIRECTIVE WORK. 

But there is a higher view of even the economic side of the 
question. Mr. Edward Carpenter, speaking to the people of 
England of what Englishmen must do if they are to maintain 
their position at the head of the industrial world, thus refers to 
what we have called "directive" power. 

" Administrative work has to be done in a nation as well as 
productive work ; but it must be done by men accustomed to 
manual labor, who have the healthy decision and primitive 
authentic judgment which come of that, else it cannot be done 
well. Above all things, have done with this ancient sham of 
fleeing from manual labor, of despising, or pretending to 
despise, it." 

But some one will tell me that there is nothing new in 
manual training, that there have been countless manual labor 
experiments in this country, which have always failed, and that 
throughout Europe industrial schools have been in successful 
operation for thirty years. Now, those who thus object do not 
recognize essential differences. Let me clear up this very 
important matter. 

The so-called 

"MANUAL labor" SCHOOLS 

have been founded as semi-charitable institutions. They have 
been attempts to solve the problem. How shall a poor boy be 
enabled to earn his living and get his education at the same 
time ? In my judgment there is no solution to that problem. 
We ought at once to recognize the fact that a good education 
costs money, and that every time we attempt to shift the burden 
of support upon children under seventeen years of age, we are 
guilty of cruelty and neglect. Of necessity, the form of labor 
adopted in these labor schools is that which involves a minimum 



Chap. IX.] NOT A MANUAL LABOR SCHOOL. 233 

of training and skill and a quick return. The pupils learn some 
of the elements of a narrow occupation ; but, on the whole, their 
education, whether mental or manual, is between very narrow 
limits. Such institutions have few points in common with a 
manual training school. 
'As to the 

INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS 

of Europe, we all know they are intended to foster certain 
established industries. In a strictly "industrial" school, a 
single ' industry is taught, and with the definite and perfectly 
well understood object of making artisans in the industry 
taught. In Europe there is no feeling against such institutions, 
nor would there be here in a commercial establishment. In 
Europe the son of a miner goes to the mines, as a matter of 
course ; and the son of a weaver has generally no hope beyond 
the loom. Except in rare instances, the child of a European 
laborer runs smoothly in grooves cut for him before he was 
born. 

In America the case is quite different. A public school 
must put no bar to a boy's development ; the upward roads are 
always to be left open. A public " trade school " in America 
would be out of place. 

APPRENTICESHIP SCHOOLS. 

There are in Europe many apprenticeship schools, which 
are generally of a higher grade than the industrial, and which 
have a somewhat broader aim, though in every case the definite 
object is to make every boy who attends, no matter what his 
natural aptitude, a skilled, practical mechanic. The literary 
and scientific training is in every case very limited, and the 
drawing is supposed to be directed to the wants of a single 
craft. As is too often the case with us, it is assumed that it 
requires no great amount of brains or intelligence to be a 
mechanic, and that intellectual culture is wasted on a man who 
finds employment for his hands. The broader aim I spoke of 
consists in furnishing a year of somewhat general training in 
which a boy may test his liking for several trades, one of which 



234 A FEATURE IN GENERAL EDUCATION. [Chap. IX. 

is to be selected at the end of the first year. They have no 
place for one who does not wish to enter upon a special trade. 
During a visit last May to an excellent apprenticeship school 
in Paris, after visiting every shop, drawing and recitation room, 
and inspecting the daily program of each section, I suggested 
to the director that I saw no provision for one who should 
prefer a general course for the entire three years. He wheeled 
upon me with the emphatic reply, " This is a school to make 
mechanics. Every boy here must be a mechanic. He must 
earn his living by his trade the moment he leaves this school." 

Now, neither the American manual labor school, nor the 
European industrial school, nor the apprenticeship school comes 
very near the manual training school. With them either self- 
support or a trade is the great, and nearly the sole, end. The 
trade schools have a worthy end, and they are successful. They 
have greatly improved the grade of technical skill in Europe, 
and they have accomplished much for their industries. I have 
no opposition to make to them, but I Avish it to be well under- 
stood that a manual training school is quite a different thing. 
Instead of the two grand objects we have in view, — one gen- 
eral and educational, the other economic, — they have but one, 
the economic. 

We do not claim to teach trades. Li our school the manual 
elements are subordinated to the intellectual. One hour of 
drawing and two hours of shop-work daily is the maximum 
demand on the manual side. On the other side, there are three 
recitation hours and private study enough to learn three lessons. 

' TWO FALLACIES. 

Two old fallacies have stood in our way, and they stand yet 
in many minds. One is that all the manual arts, except pen- 
manship and free-hand drawing, should be learned at home or 
in connection with some business establishment. They always 
have been so learned, it is urged, if learned at all ; and there is 
no good reason to suppose that they can be acquired to any 
useful extent in any other way. Certainly they can not be 
taught in school. 

There is little need for me to answer this objection. It has 



Chap. IX,]. THE SCHOOL IS NOT A FACTORY. 235 

been answered in many ways. It has been proved a hundred 
times that the logical methods of the schoolroom are as applicable 
to the theory and use of tools and implements as to chemistry 
or algebra or book-keeping, and that no business establishment 
is willing to train a boy solely in the boy's interest. Superin- 
tendent MacAlister of Philadelphia says that needlework (i.e. 
plain sewing) is more logically taught than is arithmetic in his 
school. I can say as much for what we teach at the bench, the 
anvil, and the lathe. I have yet to find one person who has 
looked closely into this matter, who does not agree with me in 
this. 

THE FALLACY OF SELF-SUPPORT. 

The other fallacy is, that the moment one introduces manual 
training he must bring in the idea of self-support. The notion 
is inherited. Every apprentice boy, every counting-house fag 
was supposed to pay for his training by his labor. So every 
stranger who looks in upon our school asks what we do with the 
boys' work, and can we not make things to sell. 

They forget, in the first place, that one's first results in a new 
field, where intelligence is necessary, are always valueless ; and, 
in the second place, that the more an establishment is a factory, 
the less it is a school. No attempt has ever been made, to my 
knowledge, to make a school of penmanship, or English com- 
position, or surgery, or medicine, or law self-supporting. 

In a manual training school, everything is for the benefit of 
the boy. He is the only article to be put upon the market. We 
can not afford to turn out anything else. Time and opportunity 
for growth are too precious. The moment a class has learned 
fairly well how to make bolts and nuts, or to cut and solder a 
tin funnel, the boys must move on to master some new and 
unknown process, instead of stopping to make bolts and funnels 
for the market. 

RELATION TO CRAFTS. 

Now, as to the relation which our instruction bears to the 
crafts in most frequent use. During the total allowance of 
three hundred and eighty hours, which, in the first year, every 
boy of the class must devote to woocVwork, the boys are learn- 



236 A FEATURE IN GENERAL EDUCATION. [Chap. IX. 

ing some of the preliminary steps and essential features of 
several wood-wqrking trades. The sharpening of chisels, gouges, 
bits, and planes ; the filing and setting of saws ; learning to 
square up and lay out work with precision ; the cutting of 
mortises and tenons ; the details of nailing, glueing, pinning, 
and dovetailing ; various kinds of inside and outside turning, 
chucking, and fitting, etc., — all these belong equally to the 
cabinet-maker, the chair-maker, the pattern-maker, the wheel- 
wright, the house-carpenter, the stair-builder, the cooper, the 
car-builder, the wood-carver, and so on. While thus learning 
the intelligent use and care of tools and materials, our boys 
become very proficient in making and using what are called 
" working drawings." This last accomplishment is essential to 
intelligent progress in any trade. 

The training given during the second year of school in the 
forging shop is equally fundamental and equally broad in its 
application. The study of form as related to strength and econ- 
omy of material ; the operations of drawing, upsetting, bending, 
punching, breaking, welding, tempering, braising, and soldering 
are fundamental in character, and preparatory to a score of dis- 
tinct occupations, the special business and conventional details 
of which we do not pretend to teach. 

Oi*r machine-shop, in which the third-year students spend 
their three hundred and eighty hours of shop-time, is quite 
appropriately named. To be sure, there are benches where 
regular exercises in chipping and filing are done, but the greater 
part of the attention is given to the study, use, and manage- 
ment of machines. To this end machines with great range of 
adjustment, and always requiring precision and the exercise of 
forethought and good judgment, are employed. The materials 
wrought are those of which machines are generally made ; viz., 
iron, cast and wrought, steel of various grades, and brass. Their 
cutting-tools the students generally make for themselves at the 
forge. We have in all twenty-one iron cutting-machines. It 
is no small thing to be able to use all these machines intelli- 
gently, not to say skillfully ; and in this age, when many new 
machines are to be made, and all sorts of machines are to be 
used in the arts, there can be no surer way than ours of develop- 



Chap. IX.] A NEW ARTICLE ON THE MARKET. 237 

ing that " directive power " which is generally conceded to be 
one of the chief fruits of a good education. 

Now, whether our boys become mining or civil or mechanical 
engineers, farmers or mechanics, merchants, manufacturers, 
lawyers, or statesmen, it seems clear that this training Avill give 
them additional power, both in molding circumstances and in 
their intercourse with men, taught and untaught, skilled and 
unskilled. 

THE COST. 

A single word as to the cost. I do not recommend manual 
training because it is cheap, or because it will result in an im- 
mediate saving of money. In the long run, it will save much 
money ; but its establishment and maintenance are expensive. 
To begin with, a building with schoolrooms and desks, drawing 
rooms and stands, shops and tools, costs more than one with 
only schoolrooms and desks. Our working sections have from 
twenty to twenty-four students each, and for each section there 
must be a teacher. In the St. Louis school, there are two 
hundred and thirty pupils and twelve actual teachers. Again, 
the current expenses of shops and laboratories are considerable. 
In my school, it costs from five dollars to seven dollars per pupil 
per year for materials. But I strongly insist that the added 
value is worth the added cost, and that no community in which 
a manual training school has once been well established would 
allow its expense to be an argument against it. 

EVENLY TRAINED BOYS. 

I have said that the only article we put upon the market is 
evenly trained boys : I now wish to add that the article is a new 
one. You can not determine its value by invoicing the boys 
who in the past have drifted without proper education, and 
without intelligent choice, into shops and offices. I do not claim 
that manual training will change a dull boy into a bright one, or 
a bad boy into a good one ; but it gives every dull boy, whether 
his dullness is in the direction of mathematics or language or 
mechanics, a chance to become less dull, and the bright boy a 
chance to retain his brilliancy. We have had some bad boys, 



238 A FEATURE IN GENERAL EDUCATION. [Chap. IX. 

but I honestly think their badness was less corrupting than it 
would have been among boys less absorbed in their work. It is 
not safe to reason, that, because a boy can not succeed anywhere 
else, he must succeed in the shop. Brains are as essential in 
our school as in any school ; as requisite to a thoroughly accom- 
plished mechanic as to a good soldier or a good orator.^ 

Doubtless more than half of our boys will find abundant 
uses for their manual training, and they will have a marked 
advantage over the untrained boys. They are all fair draughts- 
men. They have a wide acquaintance with hand and machine 
tools, and considerable skill in their use. They have an experi- 
mental knowledge of the properties of common materials, of the 
marvellous effects of heat, of the nature and amount of friction. 
Moreover, they have a fair command of English, an excellent 
knowledge of elementary mathematics, and are familiar with the 
first principles of natural science. They have analyzed mechani- 
cal processes, and learned to adapt means to ends. They have 
some knowledge of our literature, and generally of Latin and 
French grammars. Such boys will never become mere machine 
men. Do not associate them in your thoughts with that class of 
workmen, who, aside from the stock details of a single craft, have 
no cultivation whatever. They will never be content, whatever 
the vocation to Avhich circumstances and their own fitness may 
call them, to put their brains away like a piece of ornamental 
toggery for which they have no daily use. They have many 
chances in their favor. They have fast hold of a ladder, which, 
with vigorous climbing, will carry them to the top. 

HEALTHY EDUCATION. 

It almost goes without saying, that the varied exercises of a 
manual training school are highly conducive to physical health. 
On the intellectual and moral sides, I hope I have shown that 
the effect must always be good. A training which enables a boy 
to make the most of himself, in a broad and high sense, must be 
regarded as healthy. A manual training school has many win- 



1 " There can be no greater fallacy than to imagine that any boy is too good for 
the workshop. Hero is where brains are wanted." — Prof. Ripper. 



Chap. IX.1 A HEALTHY EDUCATION. 239 

dows, and it looks out upon a large circle of human activities, 
and the kindling light shines in on every side. As with its 
windows, so with its doors : its pupils step into the busy world 
in all directions, each choosing a career where he may be reason- 
ably certain of success. There are many avenues to culture and 
to success in life : we strive to keep them all open. 

The system I advocate sets up no false standards: it does 
not mistake mere bookishness for generous culture ; it teaches 
that neither the eye, nor the hand, nor the head can dispense 
with mutual co-operation and aid ; it recognizes the actual 
claims of our civilization ; it aims to elevate, to dignify, to 
liberalize, all the essential elements of society ; and it renders it 
possible for every honorable calling to be the happy home of 
cultivation and refinement. 



240 , ORIGIN, ETC., OF POLYTECHNIC TRAINING. [Chap. I. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE ORIGIN, AIMS, METHODS, AND DIGNITY OF 
POLYTECHNIC TRAINING.^ 

MILTON describes a complete and liberal education to be 
that " which fits a man to perform justly, skillfully, and 
magnanimously all the offices, private and public, both of peace 
and war." And in a letter to his friend Samuel Hartlib, he 
traces out a course of study for the " noble and gentle youth " 
of England, which he " guesses is likeliest to those ancient and 
famous schools of Pythagoras, Plato, Isocrates, Aristotle, and 
such others, out of which were bred such a number of renowned 
philosophers, orators, historians, poets, and princes ; " but, avoid- 
ing the errors of both Sparta and Athens, of which the former 
trained her youth exclusively for war, the latter for the gown, 
Milton would train them equally for peace and for war. Ad- 
mirable as is his statement of the object of education, — and 
it maybe accepted as sound for all time, — Milton evidently 
thinks his course of study adapted to the wants of only a small 
and select class, and he is very severe upon those who should 
attempt his course without carrying it well through. He says 
that, " though a linguist should pride himself to have all the 
tongues that Babel cleft the world into, yet if he have not 

1 Address given in the hall of Washington University, Oct. 24, 1873. This 
address is inserted for three reasons: — 

1. The dignity and general value of polytechnic training is still a matter of 
discussion, and the arguments presented seem to me as timely as when the 
address was written, nearly fourteen years ago. 

2. It presents very clearly the necessity for manual training on the part of all 
children, outside as well as inside the polytechnic school. 

3. This address, taken in connection with the two chapters which follow, 
clearly shows how, little by little, our ideas of manual training have matured 
under the discipline of actual experience. 



^Chap. X,] MILTON'S FIVE PROFESSIONS. 241 

studied the solid things in them, as well as words and lexicons, 
he were nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man as any 
yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his mother dialect 
only." Milton's letter was written some two hundred and 
thirty years ago ; and, though his plan of study may have been 
excellently adapted to the " noble and gentle youth " of his 
day, it is well-nigh outgrown and obsolete now. The great 
storehouse of wisdom is no longer the ancient, but the modern 
tongues. Then he needs must look across a gulf of nearly two 
thousand years to the golden ages of nations, now no more, for 
his model heroes and poets and philosophers. We, living in a 
new era of progress, find abundant use for all our powers in 
striving to grasp the wisdom and genius of the present age. 

Milton recognized but five professions open to educated 
youth ; viz., those of the theologian, the lawyer, the statesman, 
the soldier, and the gentleman, — the lust being defined by him 
as one " who retires himself to the enjoyments of ease and 
luxury." On the other hand, J. Scott Russell, one of the first 
of England's educated and practical men of to-day, enumerates 
in his plan of an English technical university, after excluding 
theology, law, and medicine, Uventy-tivo modern professions., for 
which, in some way, education is to be provided. 

It was formerly supposed that the manufacturer, the miner, 
the builder of houses or bridges or ships, the millwright, the 
farmer, the man of commerce, etc., needed no education beyond 
that gained by actual work at their trades or desks. Now, 
however, such strides have been taken in all these callings, 
through the application of the principles of modern science, 
that none but carefully trained and educated men can expect 
to secure and keep places of honor and profit iil them. 

Referring to the recent growth of scientific knowledge, which 
has been at once the cause and the consequence of the great 
increase in the number and scope of the different professions. 
Prof. Helmholtz says in a recent lecture, " We see scholars and 
scientific men absorbed in specialties of such vast extent, that 
the most universal genius can not hope to master more than a 
small section of our present range of knowledge." Philologists, 
in the place of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, with two or three 



242 ORIGIN, ETC., OF POLYTECHNIC TRAINING, [ohap. X. 

European languages, aim now at nothing short of an acquaint- 
ance with all the languages of the human family. " The zo- 
ologists of the past were content to describe the teeth, hair, 
feet, and otlier external characteristics of an animal, while the 
anatomist never went beyond the human frame. To-day we 
have added comparative anatomy and microscopic anatomy, both 
of them sciences of infinitely wider range, which now absorb the 
interest of students." The four elements of the ancients and 
of mediaeval alchemy have been increased to sixty-four ; and so 
far have the methods of chemical analysis and synthesis been 
improved, that "what is called organic chemistry, which em- 
braces only compounds of carbon with oxygen, hydrogen, nitro- 
gen, and a few other elements, has already taken rank as an 
independent science." The one thousand catalogued stars of 
the seventeenth century have grown to two hundred thousand 
in the nineteenth ; while in the department of physical dynam- 
ics, with the aid of a higher mathematical analysis which was 
totally unknown to the ancients, a whole world of knowledge, 
greater than any ancient Greek ever dreamed of, lies fresh 
opened before us. The contemplation of these things may well 
make us stand aghast, and exclaim with the chorus of Antigone, 
" Who can survey the whole field of knowledge ? " The obvious 
consequence of this vast extension of the limits of science is 
that every student is forced to choose a narrower and still 
narrower field for his own studies, and can only keep up an 
imperfect acquaintance even with the allied fields of research. 

It is thus made obvious that there must be an election of a 
course of study with each new student. No one curriculum 
can be suited to all. Our offices in life will be many and 
diverse; and if we would perform them "justly, skillfully, and 
magnanimously," we must actually choose our courses of train- 
ing and study, and of course we shall choose them very differ- 
ently. The arts are not one, but many ; and every art is based 
upon a science, real or possible ; and every science should have 
place in some course of study. Hence the university of to-day 
must teach and foster many arts : in short, it must be a 
polytechnic school. 

I hope I have thus made clear the necessity in our generation 



Chap. X.] A NEED OF SCHOOLS OF MANY ABTS. 243 

of polytechnic schools ; and you will, perhaps, be surprised 
that we did not have them earlier. But educational institu- 
tions are eminently conservative ; and, besides, the popular mind 
still had faith in the universal practical value of Milton's 
ancient school, long after shrewd, far-seeing business men were 
convinced of the need of some change. It required the 
irresistible logic of facts to convince the world that our old 
systems of education were, for the most part, outgrown. . . . 

GROWTH OF EDUCATIONAL IDEAS. 

But what has been the condition of things in the United 
States during this growth of ideas in England and on the Coi> 
tinent of Eurojje ? Certainly we have not been idle or uncon- 
cerned spectators. To a certain extent we have been whipped 
over England's back ; and tho we have always prided our- 
selves on our enterprise and " smartness " as a manufacturing 
people, and have glorified ourselves not a little over our great 
system of free public schools, and on our numerous high schools 
and colleges, we have been forced at last, not only to go across 
the Atlantic for the finest specimens of manufactured articles, 
but to look to Germany and France for guidance in educational 
matters. You know it is not, in general, a recommendation to 
say that the goods we are examining are of American manufac- 
ture, and that, as to education, the school system of Prussia is 
thought by many to be the best in the world. 

We have confessed again and again, to each other, that our 
vaunted school system has not produced the results we sought. 
We aimed at one thing ; we have secured another. We wanted 
an education that should develop the whole man ; all his intel- 
lectual, moral, and physical powers should be drawn out, and 
trained and fitted for doing good service in the battle of life. 
We wanted wise heads and strong, skillful hands. There has 
been a growing demand, not only for men of knowledge, but 
for men of skill, in every department of human activity. Have 
our schools and colleges and universities been equal to the 
demand ? Are we satisfied with what they have produced ? 
Or are we compelled reluctantly to admit, that, after filling to 
overflowing the three traditionally learned professions, they 



244 ORIGIN, ETC., OF POLYTECHNIC TRAINING. J^Chap. X. 

yield little else but candidates for Milton's class of "gentle- 
men," inasmuch as they are fitted for no kind of work, and 
consequently must spend their lives in ease and enjoyment 
if it be possible ? Fortunately, there is no place for them in 
this busy land, where every one must be a working factor ; and 
so they are driven, later in life, by sheer necessity, to learn the 
lesson which their faulty education had failed to teach ; viz., 
the art of being useful. Do you wonder that our workmen are 
dissatisfied and unskilled, and that our products are third-class? 

FAILURE OF OUR SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

Says Mr. H. K. Oliver, in a letter to the Boston Transcript^ 
dated the fifteenth day of August : " Our system [of educa- 
tion] trains boys not to become better craftsmen, but to be 
unwilling to be put to any kind of craft. Such ought not to 
be the effect of education, understood in its relation to our 
people. But a very small proportion can be of the so-called 
learned professions, and most of us must be of the productive,, 
toiling class ; and, while the mind should be justly cultivated, 
that the future workman may be able to read understandingly, 
to think wisely, and to express his thoughts well, to keep his 
business records, to apply his knowledge of the science of form, 
and to be guided by the forms of Christian morality, the main 
business of his coming life should receive at least some degree 
of attention. . . . The actual influence of our method of edu- 
cation is to make our youth in reality revolt from manual labor ; 
they shrink from entering upon lives wherein physical labor is 
to be their means of living." 

Hence, as has so often been said, nearly all our skilled work- 
men are imported. Our best machinists, miners, weavers, 
watchmakers, iron-workers, draughtsmen, and artisans of every 
description come from abroad ; and this is so, not because our 
native born are deficient in natural tact or ability, nor because 
they are, in point of fact, above and beyond such occupations, 
but because they are really below them. So long as we endeav- 
ored to train up all our youth to become philosophers or phi- 
lologists or doctors of something, those who did not look forward 
to such careers saw little or nothing of either pleasure or profit 



Chap. X.] DOUBTFUL VALUE OF MORE SCHOOLING. 245 

in continued study, and so dropped out to join the great army 
of those fitted for — nothing ! 

OLD STYLE EDUCATION USELESS. 

I am speaking of admitted facts. Three out of four, if not 
nine out of ten, of the boys in this city to-day are growing up 
to manhood without being specially trained for any sort of trade, 
business, or profession. This seems to me almost criminally 
wrong on the part of us who are to any extent in charge of 
educational matters. My opinion is (and, if you will consider 
it for a moment, you will all agree with me) that every young- 
man (and perhaps every young woman, too) should receive 
special theoretical and practical training in some one respectable 
trade or profession. Why is not this done ? It is not because 
we have not the means. St. Louis is wealthy enough to give 
€very one of her children a good intellectual and technical 
education, and then she would be wealthier still. Whatever 
may be the reason, the fact is, that the education offered, beyond 
the rudiments and elementary studies, does not seem to be just 
what is wanted. It is not attractive to pupils, or it is out of 
their reach ; or parents and business men are of the opinion, 
secret, perhaps, but firmly held, that a higher education oftener 
unfits than fits a man for earning his living. 

To be sure, statisticians will tell you to a cent how much the 
ability to read and write adds to the laborer's daily wages ; 
how much, the ability to cipher and keep accounts. Possibly, 
also, they will give you the market value of the knowledge of 
elementary mechanics and line-drawing ; but you soon find a 
point where such statistics stop, and I fancy that it would not 
be difficult to prove that there is a point in our secondary or 
higher institutions of learning where the average boy's com- 
mercial value is 7iot enhanced by a continuance in the old course 
of study. 

CRITICISMS. 

Perhaps you will think that I am both unjust and ungener- 
ous in these criticisms. If my statements and inferences are 
false, they are certainly unjust. If they are true, generosity 
does not require me to shrink from their utterance. I know 



246 ORIGIN, ETC., OF POLYTECHNIC TRAINING. [Chap. X. 

that the value of an education can not be estimated solely on a 
money basis ; but I maintain that we have no right, in a com- 
munity like ours, to ignore the pecuniary value of knowledge 
and skill. The love of money may be the root of all evil ; but, 
after all, money is the most potent instrumentality we have of 
practically doing good. 

Prest. -Barnard of Columbia College has shown that the num- 
ber of young men from New England and New York attend- 
ing the regular colleges has been steadily diminishing of late 
years ; and Mr. W. T. Harris of this city, in a recently pub- 
lished article, assumes, as a generally admitted fact, that the 
graduates of high schools less and less seek the training and 
culture which a college affords. In a time like the present, 
when the limits of human knowledge are rapidly receding on 
all sides, how can this important fact be explained, except on 
the ground that the college only partially meets the educational 
wants of the time, and that schools more in accord with the 
scientific spirit of the age are demanded ? 

POLYTECHNIC SCHOOLS. 

I conclude, then, that our need of polytechnic schools has 
been demonstrated abroad and felt at home. The reaction 
against the old regime has already begun, and we can see the 
revolution going on. In every case of the establishment of a 
genuine polytechnic school or department, new courses of study 
and instruction have been arranged, requiring, when thorough, 
even when in connection with a college, the appointment of a 
separate faculty. These courses of study in general omitted 
the classical, philological, and historical studies of the college 
curriculum ; retained a modern language or two, English com- 
position, and political economy ; gave a greater share of atten- 
tion to mathematics and the natural sciences, and added such 
technical or professional work as could be crowded into courses 
of study generally four years in length. Thus the work required 
was fully equal in amount to that in the college course, but 
differed from it essentially in character. I will here quote one 
of the founders of the Worcester Free Institute. He says : " I 
have no intention of establishing here a rival of, or a substitute 



Chap. X.] THE NEEDS OF THE AGE. 247 

for, the college. It is specially designed to meet tlie wants of 
those who have no desire for classical training, but who wish 
to be prepared, either as mechanics, civil engineers, chemists, 
architects, or designers, for the duties of active life." It may 
be said, that, in certain sense, the Worcester Institute has 
proved itself to be both a formidable rival of, and substitute 
for, the college. 

In selecting the technical and professional work to be done 
by the students of a polytechnic school, we have been guided 
partly by the experience of older similar institutions in Europe, 
but chiefly by the obvious needs of our own people. 

The first great want was for civil engineers, who should 
locate and construct the vast net-work of railroads, which con- 
tinually grows thicker and closer all over our land, with their 
thousands of bridges and tunnels. Our school must, there- 
fore, have a special course of work and study in civil engi- 
neering. 

Then chemists were wanted, — men skilled in the analysis of 
soils, ores, manures, poisons, noxious gases, and the various 
products of industry. We have gas inspectors, milk inspectors, 
and water inspectors, each of whom must be an accomplished 
chemist. Every manufacturing company, whether of iron or 
steel, or paint or soap, or refined sugar, has its chemist ; and the 
sphere of the chemist's labors increases day by day. Our poly- 
technic school must, then, be prepared to give a thorough course 
of training in chemistry. 

As soon as placer mining seemed exhausted, and the seekers 
for gold and silver found themselves face to face with huge 
mountains, in the grasp of whose mighty ledges the precious 
ores lay hidden, it began to be felt necessary to call in the aid 
of men sufficiently well versed in geology, mechanics, and 
machinery to wisely locate and superintend the working of vast 
mines, as well as skillful in the processes of reducing and assay- 
ing the ores. Then, too, the immense and rapidl}^ increasing 
demand for iron turned all eyes upon our wealth of iron ores, 
and men were demanded trained in methods of developing 
them. Thus, without referring to our mines of copper, lead, 
zinc, and possibly im, it will be at once perceived that our 



248 ORIGIN, ETC., OF POLYTECHNIC TRAINING. [Ohap. X. 

school must be prepared to train and qualify the mining 
engineer and the metallurgist. 

Meanwhile, there came from all sides calls' for men skilled in 
machines and mechanism. There were engines and motors of 
all sorts to be built ; machines of every conceivable pattern 
were to be constructed ; and men were wanted trained in all 
the theories of mechanics, thoroughly acquainted with the 
nature and properties of the materials used in construction, and 
skilled in the use of tools. It was clear that our technical 
school should aim to educate and train, as far as possible, the 
mechanical engineer. 

If we add to this list of technical courses of study that of 
building and architecture, which has thus far received but little 
attention among us, and some rather problematical experiments 
in the study of agriculture and horticulture, we have told about 
the whole story of technical education in the United States, 
outside of the government naval and military schools. In 
Europe more, vastly more, has been attempted, and much more 
has been done ; but, although their experience in these matters 
is not without its value to us, it is carefully to be borne in mind 
that an institution admirably adapted to the people of France 
or Belgium or Prussia, or even of England, is not necessarily 
the one for us. Our social frame-work is quite different. With 
us, every boy is a natural candidate for the office of president, 
and no one shall dare to place any bounds to his aspirations 
and his social possibilities ; so that a man generally spends half 
his days in finding his proper level where he can settle down 
to contented, steady work. In Europe, except in rare instances, 
he runs smoothly in grooves cut for him before he was born. 

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING IN EUROPE. 

Hence, it is possible and even necessary for them to establish 
industrial schools for children at an early age. In these schools 
the children are occupied in all about nine hours per day. 
In the morning and during an hour m the evening they receive 
instruction as in a school. During the middle of the day they 
work at the trade, whatever it may be, under the direction of 
those who teach them the rationale of the art. In schools like 



Chap. X.] THE COURSE OF AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 249 

these, which originated in Belgium and France, instruction is 
given in the arts of designing, engraving, coloring, dyeing, silk 
and ribbon weaving, lace-niaking ; of making mathematical 
instruments, of stone-cutting and wood-carving, of glass-work, 
and light kinds of metal-work. The education thus gained is 
often all the children get. The schools are filled with the 
children of laborers and operatives, who, having been early 
destined to this particular trade, look contentedly forward to 
being workmen and operatives themselves. 

Such schools, beyond their establishment in connection with 
charitable and reformatory institutions, are obviously impossi- 
ble in this country, at least for the present ; but there seems 
to be no reason why our primary and secondary, public and 
private schools on the one hand, and our polytechnic schools 
on the other, can not be so modified that they may be able 
to accomplish between them all that is desirable to attempt to 
do in competing with the trade products of Europe. I say 
all that it is desirable to attempt, for I do not consider it at all 
worthy of effort to attempt to compete with many of the hand- 
made products of European industry. I would as soon attempt 
to rival the deft and patient inhabitant of India in the manu- 
facture of Calcutta toys and camel's-hair shawls. The coming 
age is to be, even more than this, an age of machinery. The 
Waltham Watch Company in Massachusetts, and the Elgin in 
Illinois, indicate the true course for American industry to take. 
All the works of their watches are machine-made, and hence 
they are able to undersell many of the established watch- 
makers of Europe, whose work is mostly done by hand. Give 
us a better knowledge of physics and chemistry, a knowledge, 
so to speak, that is at our fingers' ends ; give us new and im- 
proved and finished machinery, and with it some training in 
the theory and practice of mechanism, and yre will challenge the 
competition of the world. 

I have referred to the want of confidence in the value of our 
old system of education beyond the most elementary work, 
and it is just to note the changes now taking place which seem 
to be wisely made. I observe the introduction of natural 
science studies into the programs of all grades of the public 



250 ORIGIN, ETC., OF POLYTECHNIC TRAINING. LOnai). £ 

schools, and into the highest the introduction of free-hand and 
mechanical drawing, and other studies strictly preparatory to a 
polytechnic course of study. Thus do the higher technical 
and professional schools, in proportion to the clearness with 
which they define their work and then maintain their standards^ 
exert the influence which higher schools always exert upon 
lower and preparatory ones, and mold them into an improved 
pattern. 

SCIENTIFIC versus CLASSIC CULTURE. 

Before I proceed to speak of the methods of a completely 
organized and thoroughly equipped polytechnic school, I wish 
to say a few words in defense of the dignity of a technical 
education, and upon the value of scientific as opposed to 
classical culture. 

The infinite range of human knowledge, as was remarked 
before, compels each student to select a course of study rela- 
tively narrower and narrower. To speak allegoricall}^, we start 
out in our educational career together. As yet we have no 
notion of where our path will lead : we seem to be all travelling 
the same road. We learn to speak and read and write our 
mother tongue. We learn enough of this earth of ours to tell 
our latitude and longitude. We catch a few glimpses of the 
field of mathematics, and then our journey becomes more diffi- 
cult. We grapple with hard problems ; we breathe invigorating 
odors ; we climb sharp precipices ; we press blindly through 
thickets to the glimmering lights beyond ; we fall, and try 
other paths, till at last each sees a straight course before him. 
He lo'oks for his comrades, but they are all gone. We are 
threading our several narrow paths alone. Of course, each is 
sure he is on the right road, and that the rest are more or less 
astray. Perhaps I find my path leading through classic fields. 
The way is rough with Greek roots, and blocked up with dia- 
lectic forms. On my right I see the yellow Tiber, rolling by 
the temples of the gods, near which I see the toga'd Cicero 
swaying the people with his eloquence. I see the gentle Virgil 
chanting his thrilling lay in the halls of the Csesars, while Livy 
is embellishing history for the glory of Rome. On my left I 



Chap. X.] AN ALLEGOBY. 251 

see the Olympian mountains, the groves of Athens, and the 
thronged Acropolis. I behold Demosthenes lashing the Greeks 
into a frenzy of rage against Philip of Macedon. A crowd is 
rushing to the theater, to be thrown into a whirl of passion by 
a tragedy of Euripides, or convulsed with laughter by a comedy 
of Aristophanes. A blind bard is singing from house to house 
the wrath of Achilles, the fall of Troy, and the woes of the 
brave Ulysses ; while in a quiet garden, with a small band of 
pupils, Plato and Aristotle walk in the cool retreats, discussing 
life, duty, the causes and the ends of things. 

What a world of beauty and wisdom lies before me ! I will 
press on to these Elysian fields, and drink at these classic founts. 
A feeling of pity springs up in my self-satisfied heart for my 
companions of yesterday, who have lost their way, and who are 
wandering on in other paths. I call aloud and listen. From 
afar come up the cheery cries, as of men not lost, but victorious. 
I charge them to come with me. /am on the right road. They 
answer that I, not the^/, have strayed. 

In the dim distance I see one digging in the bowels of the 
earth, and taking therefrom what looks like dross, but from 
which he, with fervent heat and colored flame and strange 
mixings, brings a wealth of precious and of useful ore. 

Another is absorbed in the study of the laws of motion, force, 
and strength ; and, as if by magic, he is rearing a crystal palace, 
marvelous for grace and lightness, rivaling in beauty the very, 
Parthenon itself. 

Another, amid the war of mighty engines, which in smoke 
and flame eclipse almost the mighty -^tna, and in the glare of 
forges and the clang of hammers such as Vulcan never saw, is 
training eye and hand and brain for the fabrication of a maze 
of strange machinery. 

Another is studying the life and growth of plants and trees 
and crops ; another, the races of animals, their structure, origin, 
and development; another observes the laws of trade, of society, 
of wealth, of justice, and of the mind itself. 

I vainly urge them to follow me. I tell them of the sages 
and orators and poets of ancient Greece and Rome. They echo 
back the names of Newton, and Leibnitz, and Faraday, and 



252 ORIGIN, ETC., OF POLYTECHNIC TRAINING. [Chap, X. 

Liebig, and Goethe, and Shakespere, and Rumford, and Helm- 
holz, and Darwin, and Maxwell, and Tyndall, and Agassiz, 
and Watt, and Stephenson. 

Some of these names I know. Many I never heard of before, 
as their names are not in my lexicons ; but I am certain that 
some are men of no classical culture, and are only concerned in 
the study of very common things. None of us will be persuaded 
to abandon his course, and so we go on our several ways with 
mutual sneers of contempt. We are all amazed at the stupidity 
and want of judgment which people do show on educational 
matters. 

LIBERAL EDUCATION. 

But let us return from our journeyings, and compare notes. 
It is obvious enough that all were right, and all were wrong. 
It would have been ruinous to the last degree to have all gone 
the same way. It is absolutely necessary to the world's i)rog- 
ress that we travel by different routes. The labor of each but 
complements the labors of all the rest, and one has no more 
right to scorn or underrate another who has been equally 
engaged in honest, faithful work, than has the eye to scorn the 
foot, the foot the hand, or the hand the ear. Therefore we will 
not call my education liberal, and yours illiberal ; but each shall 
respect the other's attainments, and rejoice that the day for cut- 
ting out a generation all on the same pattern has passed away. 
All training, to be thorough, must be special. General culture 
means, and must inevitably mean, a little of every thing and 
nothing deep. The man who lays claim to all knowledge is at 
once put down as a conceited quack. The man, on the con- 
trary, who modestly limits his pretensions to one science or 
study, claiming only an imperfect acquaintance even with the 
closely related sciences, may be regarded as an accomplished 
man. Thexe is an old proverb which is full of wisdom : " Be- 
ware of the man of one book." That is, he who has read, and 
re-read, and read again, one good book, is more to be feared as 
an adversary than he who has hastily and carelessly read scores. 
So in matters of science. Let one master thoroughly one 
science, — i.e., up to the present limits of knowledge; no matter 
whether it be mathematics, or chemistry, or thermodynamics, 



Cap. X.] THE NEED OF ELECTIVE COURSES. 25S 

or political economy, or physiology, — and he is a man to be 
looked up to and feared. He has incidentally learned much of 
cognate matters, but above all he has learned the method and 
reach of scientific study. All the activities of life are based 
upon scientific principles ; and not only our usefulness, but 
our happiness, largely depend upon the amount and quality 
of our knowledge of these underlying principles. 

But, you ask, how shall we choose for ourselves and for 
our children? By pointing out so many paths, you only add 
to our perplexity. Shall we follow the old, well-worn path our 
fathers trod? Shall our children spend six or seven years in 
studying Greek or Latin, or Hebrew and Sanscrit, or shall that 
time be mainly given to modern languages, to mathematics and 
the physical sciences? This is a hard question, and every one 
earlier or later must ask it. Remember, there is no single 
universal answer. I might decide in one way, you in another. 
Fortunately, we disagree ; and men everywhere, men renowned 
in science and art, in literature, ancient and modern, differ in 
naming the one course to be pursued. ... 

EDUCATION OF INTRINSIC VALUE. 

Thus you see that the old bands are broken, that there is no 
ro3'^al road to culture or scholarship. Latin and Greek are, 
very properly, the sine qua non of the college curriculum, but 
they have lost their claim to a monopoly of the words of wis- 
dom and worth. Henceforth, students will " elect " a classical 
course, as they would chemistry or natural history; and a 
thorough knowledge of the language and literature of ancient 
Greece and Rome will be regarded as much a specialty, as civil 
engineering or practical astronomy. 

I have said more on this point than I should have done, 
had I not of late noticed a strong tendency on the part of the 
friends of one or another of these rival courses of study to 
sneer at the others. It is very easy to deny Prof. TyndalFs 
claim to the title of an educated and cultivated man, because, 
forsooth, he has never studied Greek ; and it is equally easy to 
retort (as has also been done) that, as a rule, those who have 
spent so much time and labor in studying the ancient tongues, 



254 ORIGIN, ETC., OF POLYTECHNIC TRAINING, [chap. X. 

are notoriously ignorant and unskilled in the use of their own. 
But all this is wrong. One must be content to be ignorant of 
much that others know ; and, so long as he has really attained 
to knowledge and skill in some path of usefulness, he should 
feel that he has not forfeited his claim to respect and fellow- 
ship. As to the question, which course of study shall you 
pursue, I can only sa}^, that, in my judgment, the knowledge 
which it is best for you to have is the best for you to get ; 
there is no divorce between wise possession and rich experience 
in acquiring, between the best ends and the best means. As 
Dr. Wayland, in substance, says, "It is the intention of the 
all-wise Creator that all intellectual culture shall issue to 
knowledge that is of the greatest intrinsic value ; and that all 
useful knowledge, properly acquired, tends equally to intellectual 
development." 

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL. 

This distinguishing feature of a polytechnic school, next to 
the kind of knowledge it aims to give, lies in its method of 
combining theory with practice. Not only should a polytech- 
nic school aim to give iustruction in the scientific principles 
theoretically involved in every important branch of industry, 
but it should not be satisfied until the student himself is suffi- 
ciently familiar with the details of the processes in question, and 
sufficiently skilled in the necessary manipulations, to enable 
him to illustrate these principles himself. These two things 
characterize the ideal technical school, and mark the educa- 
tional progress of this generation : First, the things studied 
and taught are of immediate importance and of intrinsic value ; 
second, one is not supposed to understand a process or an 
experiment till he has performed it. You know how it is in 
music. I may be quite familiar with the mathematical and 
physical theories of music. I may have studied with Helmholz 
the wonderful mechanism of the ossicles of the ear. I may be 
deeply read in the sesthetics of harmony and thorough-bass. I 
may even be able to explain the exact difference between a 
enharmonic and a common organ. And yet, if I can not plai/, 
I am no musician. Moreover, this playing on an organ is not 



Chap. X.] THEORY AND PRACTICE. 255 

a manual accomplishment merely. The brain is more con- 
cerned than the fingers. It is so in every thing. What avails 
your knowledge of photography unless you can take a good 
picture, and of what worth is your engineering if your bridge 
will not carry its own weight, and you have designed an impos- 
sible engine ? None but the wearer can know where the shoe 
pinches, and none but a man who has had some practice is 
prepared for practical difficulties. Prof. Tyndall says, "Half 
of our book-writers describe experiments that they never made, 
and their descriptions often lack both force and truth. No 
matter how clever and conscientious they may be, their written 
•words can not supply the place of actual observation," and he 
might have added, " of actual manipulation." Theory and 
practice, then, must go hand in hand ; and, in order that the 
practice may be adequate to the theory, the hand and eye and 
head must receive previous careful training, — the hand in the 
use of instruments and tools ; the eye in measuring distances 
and ajigles, in detecting peculiarities of form, and in observing 
the details of a construction ; the head in a knowledge of the 
common properties of the commonest material substances, such 
as wood, stone, iron, glass, etc. The hand is a wonderful organ, 
and capable of performing vastly more than it is usually made 
to do. The same is true of the eye. Close observation is a 
habit which few acquire. 

MANUAL TRAINING. 

Children should early be taught to use, as well as to beware 
of, sharp tools. Just as every boy should be taught to swim, to 
TOW, to ride and groom a horse, so he should be taught to use 
the ax, the saw, the plane, and the file. Even a little skill in . 
the use of these tools is invaluable. No one possessing manual 
dexterity of any kind fails to find abundant opportunity for 
its use. 

I do not think I overestimate the value of physical strength, 
dexterity, and skill. It is in vain to assert the dignity of labor. 
Unless it has something in it besides dignity, we are not likely 
to be very zealous in seeking it. But skill we delight in. It 
is the exercise of skill which gives zest to all our games and 



256 ORIGIN, ETC., OF POLYTECHNIC TRAINING, [chap. X. 

sports, and removes the curse of Adam. There is not a person 
before me possessed of unusual skill, — I care not whether it be 
in handling the carpenter's ax or the painter's brush, in playing 
the organ or in shooting game, in driving horses or in sailing a 
boat, in making bread or in fitting a garnlent, — who is not 
conscious of a feeling of gratification and pride in consequence. 
Carlyle says in his Sartor Mesartus, " Two men I honor, and no 
third: First, the toil-worn craftsman," etc. It is obvious that 
it is the craft that he honors, and not the toil. 

I therefore plead for a more extended and more systematic 
physical [manual] education. It is the best aid towards secur- 
ing a wholesome intellectual culture, and it is the onlt/ means 
for making that culture of practical use. The world judges and 
rates us according to what we can do ; and as an accomplished 
gymnast never loses his presence of mind, whether hanging 
by one foot or turning in mid-air, so a well-trained engineer is 
rarely at a loss. An acquaintance of mine, a young man well 
trained in both the theory and use of tools, and accustomed to 
do things., chanced to pass, in the city of New York, a gang of 
workmen endeavoring to move an immense iron safe. The 
unwieldy mass had partially slipped from their grasp, and all 
efforts to bring it again under control seemed to fail. Taking 
in the situation at a glance, my friend stepped forward and 
assumed the command. Clearly and without hesitation he 
gave his orders; promptly and 'willingly the men obeyed. In 
a moment the safe was well in hand, and expeditiously moved 
to its place. As the young engineer turned to go, a gentleman 
stopped him and said, " Young man, I will give you three 
thousand dollars a year if you will enter my employ and take 
the charge of moving our safes." Besides saying that the skill 
thus displayed was gained by study of the strength of materials 
and the mechanical powers, coupled with the actual use of tools 
in his own hands, I ought to add, perhaps, that the blunt offer was 
politely declined. 

SHOP-WORK. 

But the acquisition of this desirable manual skill requires 
workshops and tools and teachers ; and, as such essentials are 
not in general to be had at home or at a common school, the 



Chap. X.] MANUAL TRAINING OUTLINED. 257 

work must be done at a polytechnic school. Hence, at the 
earliest possible moment, in the lowest class, students must 
enter the workshop. From the bench of the carpenter they 
should go to the lathe. Wood-turning is an art requiring great 
judgment and skill, and any one accomplished in it will testify 
to its great practical value. After wood, come brass, iron, and 
steel turning, fitting, and finishing ; then the forge, where each 
should learn welding and tempering. This is the alphabet of 
tools. Next will come their legitimate use in the manufacture 
of patterns for castings, in the construction of model frames, 
trusses, bridges, and roofs ; in the cutting of screws and nuts 
with threads of various pitch ; and in the manufacture of spur 
and bevel wheels, with e[)icycloid and involute teeth. This 
shop-work should extend through the entire course of four 
years, varjdng somewhat according ti the professional course 
selected. 

DRAWING. 

Meanwhile, also, throughout the course, the student should 
study and practice drawing. Drawing is tlie short-hand lan- 
guage of modern science. Careful drawings are to technically 
educated people what pictures are to children. They show at a 
glance what it is not in the power of words to express. It is 
a universal language, and should be read and understood of all 
men. But drawing has another use of equal value. It is the 
most potent means for developing the perceptive faculties, 
teaching the student to see correctly, and to understand what 
he sees. Drawing, if well taught, is the constant practice of the 
analysis of forms, and by this practice the eye is quickened 
and rendered incomparably more accurate ; and as the eye is 
the most open and ready road through which knowledge passes 
to the mind, the full development of its powers can be a matter 
of no small importance to all. In this respect, then, as an 
educator of the eye, drawing is a most valuable means, irre- 
spective of any service that the power may be of itself. But 
there is another faculty engaged in this study, — that one which 
distinguishes man from the cleverest of the animals, — the hand 
is employed, and it also is educated and trained to be more com- 
pletely under the control of the will than by any other exercise 



258 ORIGIN, ETC., OF POLYTECHNIC TRAINING, [ohap. X. 

it can be set to ; it acquires a delicacy of movement and a 
refinement of power which no other discipline can impart, and 
which fits it more completely to perform its varied and delicate 
functions. 

APPRENTICESHIP. 

At Worcester we see young men actually learning a lucrative 
and honorable trade, while gaining a good knowledge of physics, 
chemistry, mathematics, mechanics, drawing of all kinds, French, 
English composition, political economy, etc. It may be well 
here to add, that, though the Institute receives quite an income 
from the sales of its manufactured articles, it is a fixed rule 
with the management that no student shall receive pay for 
shop-work done during the regular practice hours. Extra 
work, however, is paid for exactly according to its value. This 
Worcester Institute grows more and more popular every day, 
thus showing that it meets a popular want. To it young men 
more or less skilled in the use of tools, and with decided mechan- 
ical tastes, are flocking in increasing numbers. Not all will 
become mechanical engineers, or even machinists; but all are 
adopting one of the best means of making themselves independ- 
ent of fickle fortune, and of making successful business men. 

This feature of actually learning a trade is invested with a 
new interest in these da3^s of co-operative societies and labor 
unions. You know that these unions regulate, or try to regulate, 
the number of apprentices which a shop may have. Hence it 
is often impossible for a young man to get a place to learn a 
trade ; and sometimes, even when a place is to be had, it costs 
one, if not his life, at least his personal comfort and happiness, 
to accept it. You easily see how important a bearing upon our 
social well-being, in a city like St. Louis, this question of train- 
ing apprentices is ; but I can only refer to it here. 

It seems to me that such an institution as the Washburn 
Machine-Shop should be made a feature of every polytechnic 
school. In the last bulletin from Prest. Runkle, of the Massa- 
chusetts Institute of Technology, he says, " We must have 
a machine-shop." The Stevens Institute of Technology at Ho- 
boken, N.J., is mainly a school of mechanical engineering, and 
has a large machine-shop splendidly equipped. This noble 



Chap. X.] SHOP-WORK IN 1873. 259 

institution is due to the munificence of Mr. Edwin A. Stevens, 
who gave a square of land in his native city, erected a mag- 
nificent building at the cost of a hundred and fifty thousand 
dollars, and then gave as a permanent endowment the princely 
sum of five hundred thousand dollars. As it has been in opera- 
tion scarcely two years, we can not quote its experience. 
As for 

THE POLYTECHNIC DEPARTMENT OF THIS UNIVERSITY, 

I have time for but a single word. We have our chemical 
laboratories, where every possible experiment is tried with the 
greatest ease and nicety. We have our mining and metallurgi- 
cal laboratories, where all the processes of smelting and assay- 
ing ores are carried on ; we have very full and valuable cabinets 
of minerals and fossils ; we have a very fair assortment of physi- 
cal apparatus, and an excellent opportunity for the student in 
physics to put his theoretical results to the test, and to carry 
on his independent investigations ; we have all the instruments 
used by civil engineers, and a very good collection of models. 
In addition to the above, we have, what is certainly worthy of 
mention, a small worksliop, containing a single work-bench, 
tAvo foot-lathes, a gear-cutter, and a forge. Small and inade- 
quate as this shop is to the wants of our department, I hold it 
at no mean price. Our great want, however, lies in this direc- 
tion : money ! Did I hear you say that such things cost money ? 
I grant it. Everything worth having usually costs heavily ; but 
remember, I have proved that such investments pay, — if not in 
this generation, certainly in the next. The road to commercial 
prosperity lies through the door of practical, scientific training ; 
and in these matters the great city of the West must not be 
behind her Eastern sisters. Give us our suite of workshops, 
our Washburn Machine-Shop, and we will call it by any name 
you please. 

A NOBLE EXAMPLE. 

It is a part of my duty — and I hope you consider it also a 
part of yours — to preach the crusade of a higher and better 
education, until no one shall need to be persuaded of the value 
of that whose price is above rubies. As to the other considera- 



260 ORIGIN, ETC., OF POLYTECHNIC TRAINING. [Ohap. X. 

tion, — namely, that of renelering it possible for every young 
man desiring it to seek in a polytechnic school for that educa- 
tion which shall enable him the better to discharge his duties to 
himself and to others, — let me commend the royal example of 
Sir Joseph Whitworth, England's great mechanical engineer.^ 

1 Note written in 1877. — Sir Joseph Whitworth, in 1868, when plain Joseph 
Wliitworth, mechanical engineer, at Manchester, Eng., founded thirty " Whit- 
worth Scholarships," worth five hundred dollars each annually. He was knighted 
the following year. For a similar wise and noble disposition of honorable wealth 
among us, we cheerfully pledge the honors of an American knighthood. Whit- 
worth still lives to superintend with increasing satisfaction the disposition of his 
magnificent liberality. 



Chap. XI. j METHODS OF EDUCATION. 261 



CHAPTER XI. 

MANUAL EDUCATION.i 

'TTTHEN stated in general terms, the object of education 
* VV has been the same in all ages, — the development of 
those powers and faculties which combine to form the ideal man 
of the age. But when we examine the ideals, the standards of 
excellence set up, we find them as different and as various as 
possible. 

Among the Greeks this education was secured by the study 
of Homer and geometry, and by the culture of physical strength 
and beauty ; the latter was gained by gymnastic exercises, by 
running, wrestling, boxing, hurling the discus, and handling 
the weapons of war. 

The later Romans aimed to make poets and orators and 
warriors, and trained their youth in the study of poetry and 
eloquence, and in exercises which were typified in the bloody 
scenes of the arena. 

A thousand years later, and the standard has again changed. 
Orators and poets have disappeared. In place of the naked 
foot-soldier, with a shield and short sword, we have a mounted 
knight, clad in steel, bearing a long and heavy lance. The 
youth are taught to ride and groom a horse, to run, to jump, to 
row a boat, to bear a lance, to shoot with a bow, to read and 
write^ and to sing songs of love and valor. 

Still later, when the invention of gunpowder had swept away 
forever that extravagant estimate of the value of physical 
strength and powers, when the invention of printing had spread 
throughout Europe the wealth of ancient literature, the stand- 
ards of excellence and the methods of education turned back 

1 A paper read before the St. Louis Social Science Association, May 16, 1878. 



262 MANUAL EDUCATION. [Chap. XL 

again to the literature of the past. Pupils were taught to read 
and write the ancient languages. They studied Euclid, and 
memorized Virgil and Homer. Scholars wrote their essays upon 
literature, science, and art in the Latin tongue. Physical train- 
ing gradually disappeared. The pen was found to be mightier 
than the sword: so the hand was taught to wield only the 
pen. The popular idea of excellence was embodied in a man 
of commanding intellect and extensive information, whose rea- 
soning powers had been cultivated to the highest degree by the 
study of pure mathematics and the philosophy of the ancients. 
The practical side of life, with its thousands of material and 
physical problems, was looked down upon as ignoble and un- 
worthy serious study. To-day the civilized world is re-acting 
from this one-sided standard. Systematic education, which in 
former times was limited to a select few in every land, has now 
become popular ; and we are gradually learning that exclusively 
intellectual education is not exactly what the people want. The 
schools of Eton and Rugby, and the universities of Oxford and 
Cambridge, were perhaps well adapted to rear the scholars and 
statesmen of Great Britain ; but they are not the schools in 
which to train all the children of London and Manchester. 

I have said that the re-action has begun. It is, however, not 
so much a re-action as 

A NEW DEPARTURE IX EDUCATIOISr. 

In the first place, the excellence of intellectual training is 
admitted, and the value of a certain amount of abstract mental 
discipline is recognized. In the second place, in returning to a 
just recognition of the importance of our physical powers and 
faculties, and of a practical knowledge of the properties and 
uses of material things, the new education trains youth to skill- 
fully wield, not so much the weapons of war, as the instruments 
of peace ; not so much the shield and spear and battle-ax, as, 
the file and chisel and sledge ; to drive an engine in the inter- 
ests of trade and commerce and peaceful intercourse, rather 
than a chariot of war ; and, if we still must learn the art of war, 
we would teach our youth to fashion and use the unerring 
breech-loading rifle, rather than the long bow or the short sword. 



Chap. XI,] MAN A TOOL-USING ANIMAL. 263 

During the last hundred years the world has made rapid 
strides in the invention and use of tools. We do nothing with 
the unaided hand ; everything is done by tools. 

" Man," says Carlyle, " is a tool-using animal. He can use 
tools, can devise tools ; with these the granite mountains melt 
into light dust before him ; he kneads glowing iron as if it were 
soft paste ; seas are his smooth highway, winds and fire his 
unwearying steeds. Nowhere do you find him without tools: 
without tools, he is nothing ; with tools, he is all." 

On the physical side, he is the greatest public benefactor who 
makes the best tools, and he is the best workman who can use 
tools best. 

Since these things are so, it would appear that a proper 
system of education should include some training in the use of 
tools. Mr. Chancy, the president of the Boston Industrial 
School Association, says in a recent letter : " I advocate such 
training (the use of the half dozen common wood-working 
tools) as a part of the public-school system, on the ground 
that it is a necessary part of the education of every house- 
holder." 

INSUFFICIENCY OF THE PRESENT SYSTEM. 

Nothing is clearer than that our present system of education 
is inadequate. For fifty years there has been a growing con- 
viction that the education of the schoolroom does not cover the 
whole ground ; that, however excellent the abstract intellectual 
discipline, however thorough may be the reading of written 
histories and the study of language, a great want is still unsat- 
isfied. We want a fuller knowledge and a greater familiarity 
with the material world by which we are surrounded, through 
the medium of which we act for and upon each other and for 
our own physical well-being. A knowledge of material things 
and material instrumentalities can be gained only by close and 
systematic observation and study, and is in itself a liberal 
education. Consider, for a moment, to how great an extent 
the value of a man as a factor in society depends upon his exact 
information of the material world and nature's laws. The con- 
clusions of the best theorizer are valuable only in proportion to 



264 MANUAL EDUCATION. [Ohap. XL 

the soundness and completeness of his premises. Is a plate of 
rolled iron equally strong along and across the grain ? Does 
wood, in seasoning, shrink equally in all directions across the 
grain ? What shapes can, and what can not, be molded and 
cast? What is any one of the myriad facts of chemistry learned 
fully only by observation and experiment ? Upon your answer 
to such questions, your practical usefulness depends. In your 
investigations upon such points, your brain will be as active as 
your hands. If you neglect to use either, you will be lame and 
impotent. 

We all have two natures, one physical and one spiritual, 
bound together in a union so close that no man can draw the 
line of separation. If the material world is not the basis of 
the intellectual, it is certainly, as far as our human existence 
is concerned, the sine qua 7ion of its growth and manifestation. 
The sound mind can be found only in connection with the 
sound body. 

■ If this' is so, sound reasoning would require their co-edu- 
cation. 

THE CO-EDUCATION OF BRAIN AND HAND. 

It was the fashion with certain fanatics once, and it is still an 
article in the creed of some, that we must mortify and despise 
this fleshly nature. This glorious frame, with all its wondrous 
mechanism, must be put to shame ; the hand must lose its 
cunning, the body its strength and vigor, the eye its lustre, that 
the spirit alone may triumph. 

To us these notions seem but the relic of a barbarous age, 
and yet they have burned themselves deep into our social 
constitution. 

Our care must be, while developing and strengthening our 
mental faculties, and imparting some useful information, to cul- 
tivate the hands and arms and eyes, to give them strength, flexi- 
bility, dexterity, precision, and habita of prompt obedience to 
the will. These results come only from early training ; while 
the body is growing and the mind is maturing, the joints are 
flexible and the muscles are tractable, the eye unprejudiced, and 
the mechanical judgment in a most teachable condition. 



Chap. XI.] MORE THAN BOOKS IS NEEDED. 265 

Wendell Phillips says : " The discrimination against those 
who prefer to work with their hands is very unjust. Our sys- 
tem of education helps the literary class to an unfair extent, 
when compared with what it affords to those who choose some 
mechanical pursuit. Our system stops too short ; and as a 
justice to boys and girls, as well as to societ}^, it should see to it 
that those whose life is to be one of manual labor should be 
better trained for it." 

Says Anna C. Garlin, in the Netv England Journal of Educa- 
tion : " Let the child be taken to school whole, instead of in 
parts ; let him be considered to have a body as well as a mind ; 
let him be trained physically toward use, by a wise shaping 
of the eager animal activity ; let him be protected from the 
cupidity of manufacturer and the pressure of home poverty, 
by utilizing the active energy, which in more primitive times 
was of so much account in the family economy ; let him be 
gradually introduced into that hard world of work for which 
he is destined, by a training which shall be of the hands as 
well as of the brain. ... If we are to protect the children 
of the very poor from the very ivorst consequences of their 
condition, without making paupers of them or their parents, we 
must continue (after the training of the kindergarten) in some 
way to give them study and work together." 

Says Mr. J. P. Wickersham, Superintendent of Public In- 
struction for the State of Pennsylvania : " It is high time that 
something should be done to enable our youth to learn trades, 
and to form industrious habits and a taste for work. 

" It is not enough to instruct a boy in the branches of learn- 
ing usually taught in our common schools, and there leave him. 
It must be seen to by some authority that he is allowed a chance 
to prepare himself to earn a livelihood. It takes more than a 
mere knowledge of books to make a useful member of society 
and a good citizen. The present product of our schools seems 
to be, in too great a degree, clerks, book-keepers, salesmen, 
agents, o£Qce-seekers, and office-holders. We must so modify 
our system of instruction as to send out, instead, large classes 
of young people fitted for trades, for business, and willing and 
able to worky 



266 MANUAL EDUCATION. [Chap. XI. 

Here is the important point, — " able and willing to work.^'^ 
A man who has been taught to work with intelligence and skill 
at once has a higher estimate of labor and laboring men. 

Test this by referring to your own experiences. Have you a 
single physical accomplishment ? If you have, you are proud 
of it. It may be that you are skillful in the use of the rifle or 
the ax, the file or the stone-mason's sledge. It may be that you 
excel in handling the pencil, pen, or brush. Perhaps it is the 
needle, the violin, the piano, or only the cue. Whetever it is^ 
you not only plume yourself upon your skill, but you have a 
high respect for those who are your peers, and a strong suspicion 
that few people have any idea of what skill lijie yours really 
means. 

Prest. Runkle says : " Public education should touch prac- 
tical life in a larger number of points ; it should better fit 
all for that sphere in life in which they are destined to find 
their highest happiness and well-being. It is not meant by this 
that our education should be lowered mentally, but that it 
should be based, if possible, upon those elements which may 
serve the double purpose of a mental culture and discipline, 
— a development of the capacity of the individual with and 
through the acquisition of artistic tastes and manual skill in 
the graphic and mechanic arts which most largely apply in our 
industries. The student who completes his high-school course 
at eighteen seldom willingly enters the shop as an apprentice, 
with the intention of becoming a skilled mechanic and earning 
a livelihood by manual labor. His twelve or fourteen years of 
mental school-work, whether highly successful or not, have, 
through habit, if in no other way, unfitted him for all manual 
work, even if he has not in many ways been taught to despise 
such labor." 

CONTEMPT FOR MANUAL LABOR. 

The average man is apt to despise and underrate an accom- 
plishment which he, through lack of training or effort, does 
not possess. One who knows how to use tools well is rarely 
ashamed to use them ; and he enjoys it, too. The ambitious 
young wife who " can not endure cooking," and who scouts the 



Cbap. XI,] SHUNNING MANUAL LABOR. 267 

idea of making her own clothes, is simply unable to do either. 
The man who turns his nose up highest at the rough palm of 
the joiner, or the soiled fingers and greasy apron of a machinist, 
is generally one who can not tell steel from cast iron, and can 
not drive a nail into a piece of wood without splitting it. It is 
no wonder that such men despise labor of all kinds. Consist- 
ency requires it ; to do otherwise would be a sort of confession 
of a personal mistake. 

But opportunities to learn trades are very limited. Indenture 
and regular apprenticeship have passed away for ever. The 
ordinary apprentice of to-day is the butt and fag of the shop. 
No one takes a personal interest in him, nor feels any responsi- 
bility for his progress. He is kept drudging, and his progress 
in learning the craft is made secondary to his employer's inter- 
est. A majority of apprentices in the United States run away 
before their trade is fully learned, and set up the claim of 
journeymen with a view to getting better pay. This lowers 
the standards of workmanship, of honor, and of wages also. 
Apprenticeship in St. Louis to-day means long days, hard and 
often disagreeable work, poor pay, and the almost certain pros- 
pect of low wages and a narrow field of labor in the future. 
It is no wonder that boys of fair education shrink from it. 

Another reason for shunning manual labor is the ambition to 
be rich. Wealth is regarded as a prize in a lottery, and the 
laboring men always draw blanks. Tho the good workman 
is much less frequently reduced to want than those who propose 
to live by their wits, the distant possibility of affluence through 
speculation or the shrewd management of the labor of others, 
the large salary or the enormous fees of the occasional profes- 
sional man draw the infatuated crowd away as the song of the 
fabled siren did the voyagers of old. A single ten-thousand- 
dollar salary is liable to demoralize the entire youth of a 
community. 

The tyranny of trade unions is felt in every trade. For the 
purpose of increasing the value of their own labor and skill, 
craftsmen combine to keep others out of their shops. Hence 
the sons of a poor journeyman often find it impossible to learn 
their father's trade, and are driven to habits of idleness and 



268 MANUAL EDUCATION. [Chap. XI. 

vice. By threats of stopping work and reducing a factory to 
enforced idleness, the unions generally carry their point. By 
looking only at the relation which they sustain to their employ- 
ers, and not at their social relations, these unions persuade 
the very people whom they most oppress of the justice of their 
course. 

TRADE SCHOOLS. 

Let us now see what steps have been taken to remedy these 
evils, and to better adapt our system of education to the present 
stage of civilization. 

Through the instrumentality of our international expositions, 
we have become well acquainted with the progress made else- 
where in educational as well as other matters. 

It is more than a hundred years since a school of trades was 
established in Russia. It is not a little strange that that far- 
off and strange people, whom we are accustomed to regard as 
occupying a somewhat lower plane of civilization, and who seem 
to have so little in common with other nations, should in 
practical matters have been twice our teacher. The special 
inspiration of this paper came from Russia. 

The introduction of machinery, the division of labor, and 
the extensive competition incident to increased facilities for 
commerce, suggested both the possibility and the necessity of 
cheapening the cost of production, as well as improving the 
quality of the manufactured articles, by the systematic instruc- 
tion of children in the bare details of a single trade, and their 
early introduction to the shops. Where the business of a 
community was largely of one kind, the trade school became 
an important item in the public economy. 

Later, trade schools were established in Belgium and France, 
and thence they have spread throughout Europe. During the 
past twenty years, hundreds have been established. Their 
effect upon the manufacturing interests of the people has been 
very striking. Educational ideas have spread like wild-fire, 
and a new era has dawned upon civilization. 

For the most part, these trade schools have been established 
by government for the education of the children of the laboring 
classes, and for the purpose of fostering particular industries. 



Chap. XL] national INDUSTRIES. 269 

Hence they have been as various as the trades and occupations 
of men, and may be classed under the general name of indus- 
trial schools. Special prominence has, of course, been given to 
what we have learned to consider national industries. Belgium 
had schools for weaving ; France, for silks and laces ; Switzer- 
land, for watches and toys ; Bohemia, for glass-making and 
pottery ; and so on. 

In North Germany and Austria, industrial schools have been 
more recently introduced ; but they have been on a broader 
foundation, and with a more philosophical basis. 

THE INSUFFICIENCY OF POLYTECHNIC SCHOOLS. 

Austria had been foremost in the establishment of its higher 
polytechnic schools, hoping to solve the problems of practical 
education by the training of skillful engineers. But this plan 
failed to accomplish all that was expected. " Ten years ago," 
says Mr. F. Buisson, commissioner of education from France 
to Vienna and Philadelphia, " Austria resembled an army which 
had at its head a brilliant major-general, very mediocre corps 
and division officers, and no subordinate officers at all. Be- 
tween the highest and the lowest industries, as between patron 
and workman, the tie of union failed. The trade and business 
of the country seemed manacled for the want of foremen. 
The gradual decrease of this middle class, the elite among work- 
men, indispensable as they are to commerce, agriculture, manu- 
facturing, and all other kinds of industry, so stirred up public 
opinion, that the government, urged and seconded by numerous 
societies, undertook to establish at once a system of institutions 
for imparting instruction in trades and business to large classes 
of workmen and laborers, and their children." Austria has [in 
1878] at least twenty-eight schools for weaving ; three schools 
for lace ; eight schools for the whole group of mechanical indus- 
tries ; a special school for watchmaking, at Vienna ; fifteen 
schools for giving instruction in the arts of working wood, 
marble, and ivory ; six for instruction in making toys ; four for 
instruction in making baskets and mats ; and seven for instruc- 
tion in making arms, and in other metallurgical industries. 

New industries have actually been introduced through the 



270 MANUAL EDUCATION. [Ohap. XL 

agency of industrial schools, and a reasonable balance has been 
maintained between different trades. It will suffice now for 
me to give in detail the management and course of study in 
one or two of the best of European trade schools. 
I select the 

artisan's school of ROTTERDAM 

in the Netherlands, an institution that was fully represented at 
the Philadelphia Exposition. 1 am indebted to Superintendent 
J. P. Wickersham of Pennsylvania for this account, which 
appears in his report for 1876. 

" The Artisan's School at Rotterdam was established in 1869, 
and is intended for the sons of workmen. In order to gain 
admission they must be from twelve to fifteen years of age, 
and be able to read and write. An elementary knowledge of 
arithmetic is also required. The number of pupils is now 
about two hundred, and is increasing. They pay a small fee, 
and are expected to remain in the school for three years. The 
institution is both a school and a workshop. In the school are 
taught, for a part of the day, the branches in which instruction 
is usually given in our common schools, together with algebra, 
geometry, elementary mechanics and physics, drawing, singing, 
etc. The workshops, in which the remainiiig part of the day 
is spent, are arranged for different trades, and are large and 
comfortable. There are shops for each of the following classes 
of workmen : carpenters, blacksmiths, metal-workers, masons, 
stone-cutters, cabinet-makers, wood-carvers, metal-turners, and 
others less important. . . . 

" The practical instruction ... is given in the afternoon, in 
special workshops, by clever masters, where the boys are taught 
for carpenters, smiths, braziers, painters, masons, stone-cutters, 
cabinet-makers, wood-carvers, modelers, turners, etc. . . . 

" It has been shown that boys who are occupied one half the 
day with books in the school, and the remaining half with tools 
in the shops, make about as rapid intellectual progress as those 
of equal ability who spend the whole day in study and recita- 
tion. And, in addition, the mechanical skill they acquire is of 
immense value." 



rom 7 


A.M. 


to 


8 


A.M. 




11 


A.M. 




12 


M. 




" 2.30 


P.M. 




3 


P.M. 





Ohap. XL] EUROPEAN INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 271 



THE APPRENTICE SCHOOL OF THE CITY OF PARIS 

was opened in January, 1873. The school receives apprentices 
in iron and wood work. The course covers three years. Stu- 
dents must be not less than thirteen, nor more than sixteen 
years old. Instruction is free, and all tools, books, and materials 
are furnished. The entrance examination is in reading, writ- 
ing, and elementary arithmetic. Students enter the school 
gate at seven o'clock a.m., and are dismissed at seven o'clock 
P.M. Each brings a morning and an afternoon lunch. The 
daily program, six days in each week, is as follows : — 

8 A.M Study. 

11 A. M Shop- work. 

12 M Lunch and recreation. 

2.30 p. M Shop-work. 

3 p.M Lunch. 

7 p.M Study and recitation. 

The highest, or third-year, class has shop-work from eight till 
five o'clock, and but two hours of recitations daily. 

The branches studied are : arithmetic, algebra, geometry, 
geometrical drawing, sketching and design, physics, chemistry, 
descriptive geometry, mechanics, history and geography,- book- 
keeping, French, English, and common law. 

The shop-work includes the details of some half dozen trades. 
The first year is spent in going the round of the trades for the 
purpose of finding the aptitudes of the pupils. At the begin- 
ning of the second year the apprentice, with the advice of his 
parents and teachers, decides upon a certain trade, to which he 
devotes himself exclusively for two years. Articles are made 
for the market, and skillful students are allowed from forty 
cents to one dollar for their work every fortnight. The school 
is popular, and its patronage is increasing.^ 

1 I visited this school in 1885, and found it adhering closely to its original plan. 
Its director was clear, straightforward, and emphatic as to its scope and aim. The 
boys were to be mechanics, and each was to earn his living by his trade there 
learned. The school was full, and the government appropriations evidently 
generous and prompt. Tho differing widely from an American manual training 
school, this school and the more elementary one on Rue Turnefort, also in Paris, 



272 MANUAL EDUCATION. [Chap. XL 

I have been somewhat minute in presenting the details of 
these schools, in order that we might fairly consider the pro- 
priety of introducing similar 

TRADE SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

There are many who advocate this plan on a grand scale» 
A special committee of the Boston Social Science Association 
reported in January, 1877, a plan for, first, a "developing 
school, so established and arranged as to give all the pupils a 
good general idea of all the different trades, arts, or callings, in 
order that it may be ascertained, by themselves or the super- 
intendent, for what kind of business they have the greatest 
natural genius." Secondly, a series of school-shops, in each of 
which a single trade should be taught. 

The committee generously proposed to avoid the exceedingly 
narrow range of most actual workshops, by furnishing their 
school-shops with "every tool and appliance of every name and 
nature that is ever used in any shop whatever, so that the 
student would become acquainted with every manner of doing 
work, and the management of every kind of tool or device ever 
used in any place or business for doing work." Such, in brief,, 
is the plan seriously urged upon the city of Boston to provide 
far the training of all the youth of the city. The recommenda- 
tion closes with the cheerful prediction, that " the worth of the 
work made by the boys would probably pay current expenses 
after a very short time." 

I do not wish to fail to appreciate the excellent spirit and 
main purpose of that report, but it seems to me that a little 
reflection will convince any one that their plan is thoroughly 
impracticable. Consider, only, the number of " trades, arts, or 
callings " in a single American city of half the size of St. Louis. 
Are not their names found under every letter of the alphabet. 



has had great influence upon public education in that city. All, or nearly all, 
the free public elementary schools have a species of manual training in the shape 
of wood-work. I visited some of the best of these. The shop arrangements were 
generally crowded and crude. Moreover, tools were put into hands much 
younger than I could approve; but the teachers appeared to favor it, finding it 
wholesome, stimulating, and useful in many ways. The exercises were generally 
abstract. 



Chap. Xl] THE FOLLY OF TEACHING TRADES. 273 

and is not the list increasing every year? As, for example, 
bakers, bankers, barbers, basket-makers, blacksmiths, book- 
binders, brewers, brick-layers, brick-makers, brush-makers, 
butchers ; and, again, machinists, masons, millers, mill-wrights, 
miners, molders, musicians, etc.^ It is obvious that all such 
occupations must be included, or else they would soon dis- 
appear from society, — all the youth being directed into other 
paths. 

Now, have the committee ever sat down to a serious estimate 
of the cost of all the trade shops, with their unequaled and com- 
plete equipment of tools and appliances? I think not. It is 
perfectly safe to say that their cost would far surpass the cost 
of all the schoolhouses and churches in the city. 

But it avails little to show the absurdity of a j)roposition 
too extravagant to be generally indorsed. The question still 
remains, Will trade schools flourish on American soil ? Would 
a school like the Artisan's School of Rotterdam, or the Appren- 
tice School of Paris, thrive in St. Louis ? I honestly think it 
would, to the extent of a single school ; but I think it much 
less in harmony with the free spirit of our social organization 
than the plan of manual education I am about to propose, and 
I can not recommend it as a feature of our system of public 
education. 

America has not yet adopted that sort of industrial education, 
and I doubt if she ever Avill : she will do better. 

TEADES NOT TO BE TAUGHT AT SCHOOL. 

The first reason why I think we shall not wisely attempt to 
teach the details of actual trades is, that the scope of a trade is 
far too narrow for general educational purposes. Our physical 
education must be as broad and liberal as our intellectual. 

There is no breadth of manual training in being a tailor, or a 
painter, or a molder, or a shoemaker ; and he who learns either 
trade is rarely able to get out of the rut. Such being the case, 
both parents and children often hesitate to choose a trade, when 
the choice seems to be for life. In European society the feeling 

1 " The trades are many, the arts are few." — Prof. John D. Runkle. 



274 MANUAL EDUCATION. [ohap. XL 

is very different. The son of a miner goes to the mines as a 
matter of course, and the son of a weaver has generally no 
hopes beyond the loom. Whatever ambitious dreams a fond 
parent may cherish, or whatever visions may quicken the pulse 
of the humble child of a European laborer, they are smothered 
and crushed under the ruthless wheels of an inexorable destiny, 
In America, on the contrary, there is no limit to the possible 
social advance of the poor man's child. A nation which bestows 
its highest honors on a flat-boat man and a rail-splitter of the 
prairie, and associates with him a man who never went to 
school, and whose only teacher was his wife, can not expect its 
sons to fetter themselves by a trade which threatens to tie them 
down to a life of toil and obscurity. 

To the man of only ordinary enterprise and force, the shackles 
of a trade early learned and closely followed for a few years 
may become as strong as steel, and, like the fetters of a slave, 
bind him to an occupation he would flee, but can not. We 
have all seen men who could do one thing and nothing else, — 
not even if their lives depended on it. Their special education 
had been begun too early, and limited to the absolute needs of 
the trade. Do not misunderstand me. I am in favor of having 
nearly every young man learn a trade, or rather the essential 
elements of many trades ; but I would not have him learn a 
single specialty so early and so exclusively as to learn nothing 
else. The objection to a self-supporting trade school has 
additional force when we remember that the standard in a 
trade is determined by the local demand for the products of 
that trade. A shop which manufactures for the market, and 
expects a revenue from the sale of its products, is necessarily 
confined to salable work ; and a systematic and progressive 
series of lessons is impossible. If the object of the shop is 
education, a student should be allowed to discontinue any task 
or process the moment he has learned to do it well. If the 
shop is to make money, the students will be kept at work 
on what they can do best, at the expense of breadth and 
versatility. 

Prof. Francis W. Newman of England said in 1872: "To 
cultivate the eye and hand, in and by the use of various tools, 



Chap, XI.] TYPICAL TOOLS AND PBOCESSES. 275 

is of endless industrial value. Some one has yet to develop a 
systematic teaching of what may be called carpenter's drawing. 
The more various the cultivation of the hand and the eye, the 
more efficient will be the laborer in any special work. Definite 
trades can not be taught in a national school system ; but the 
faculties maybe trained which will be serviceable in all trades." 

It is claimed that students take more interest in working 
upon something, which, when finished, has intrinsic value, than 
they do in abstract exercises. This is quite possible, and proper 
use should be made of this fact, — just as it is well to stimulate 
the interest of a child studying arithmetic, by reckoning up the 
cost of the daily supply of meat and vegetables, or by com- 
puting the cost of material and labor put into a dress ; but, 
if all education were limited to such practical examples, our 
schools would be useless. The idea of a school is, that chil- 
dren are to be graded and taught in classes ; the result aimed 
at being, not at all the objective product or finished work, but 
the intellectual and physical growth which comes from the 
exercise. Of what use is the elaborate solution in algebra, 
the minute drawing, or the faithful translation, after it is well 
done ? Do you not erase the one, and burn the other, with the 
clea,r conviction that the only thing of value was the discipline, 
and that that is indestructible ? 

Now, should we not proceed in manual education on precisely 
the same plan ? Should ive not abstract all the mechanical processes 
and manual arts and typical tools of the trades a7id occupations of 
-men^ and arrange a systematic course of instruction in the same, 
and then incorporate it into our system of education f Thus, 
without teaching any one trade, we teach the essential me- 
chanical principles of all. The thousands of tools used in the 
arts are but modifications of a few simple elements. The}^ 
differ in degree more than in kind, and in the extent to which 
different kinds of tools are incorporated into the same complex 
n-iachine. The universal tools are scarcely more than a half 
dozen in number. 

I am aware that some will think that I aim at a sort of 
*' jack-of-all-trades, but master of none." I will only remark 
that a good jack-of-all- trades may easily become master of any. 



276 MANUAL EDUCATION. [Chap. XI. 

Some of you will recall the glowing admiration with whicli 
Theodore Winthrop, the brilliant and ill-fated young writer of 
the New York Seventh Regiment, spoke of the skill and handi- 
craft of the Eighth Massachusetts Regiment. The two regi- 
ments went together to the early defense of Washington, in 
April, 1861. The Yankees had captured a ferry-boat near Bal- 
timore, manned the engines, and steamed to Annapolis, saving 
it and " Old Ironsides " from capture. They found the railroad 
track leading to Washington torn up. 

" ' Wanted, experienced track-layers ! ' was the word along the file. All 
at once the line of the road became densely populated with experienced 
track-layers fresh from Massachusetts. 

" Presto, change ! The rails were relaid, spiked, and the roadway leveled 
and better ballasted than any road I ever saw south of Mason and Dixon's 
line. ' We must leave a good job for these folks to model after,' says the 
Massachusetts Eighth. 

" A track without a train is as useless as a gun without a man. Train 
and engine must be had. ' Uncle Sam's mails and troops can not be stopped 
another minute,' oiu" energetic friends conclude. So ... in marches 
Massachusetts to the station. 'We, the people of the United States, want 
rolling-stock for the use of the Union,' they said, — or vyords to that effect. 

"The engine — a frowsy machine, at the best — had been purposely 
disabled. 

" Here appeared the deus ex machina, Charles Homans, Beverly Light 
Guard, Company E, Eighth Massachusetts Regiment. 

" That is the man, name and titles in full, and he deserves well of his 
country. 

"He took a quiet squint at the engine, — it was helpless as a boned 
turkey, — and he found ' Charles Homans, his mark,' written all over it. 

" The old rattletrap was an old friend. . Charles Homans had had a share 
in building it. The machine and the man said, ' How d'ye do ? ' at once. 
Homans called for a gang of engine-builders. Of course they swarmed out 
of the ranks. .They passed their hands over the locomotive a few times, and 
presently it was ready to whistle and wheeze, and rumble and gallop, as if no 
traitor" had ever tried to steal the go and the music out of it. . . . 

" We of the New York Seventh afterwards concluded that whatever was 
needed in the way of skill or handicraft could be found among those brother 
Yankees. They were the men to make armies of. They could tailor for 
themselves, shoe themselves, do their own blacksmithing, gunsmithing, and 
all other work that calls for sturdy arms and nimble fingers. In fact, I 
have such profound confidence in the universal accomplishment of the 
Massachusetts Eighth that I have no doubt if the order were, ' Poets to the 



Chap. XL] the MASSACHUSETTS EIGHTH. 277 

front ! ' ' Painters, present arms ! ' ' Sculptors, charge bayonets ! ' a baker's 
dozen out of every company would respond." {Atlantic Monthly, vol. vii., 
pp. 747, 750.) 

When Wintlirop said, "Such are the men to make armies 
of," he might have added, Such are the men to do any thing 
with., — to span mighty rivers, to subdue the wilderness on 
mountain and plain, to cultivate literature, science, and art ; 
in short, to spread the blessings of civilization. 

THE RUSSIAN METHOD. 

To Russia belongs the honor of having solved the problem of 
tool-instruction. Others had admitted that practice in using 
tools and in testing materials should go hand in hand with 
theory ; but Russia first conceived and tested the idea of ana- 
lyzing tool practice into its elements, and teaching the elements 
abstractly to a class. In their hands, manual tool-education 
has become a science. While recognizing the lead of Russia, 
it is necessary to recognize, next, the very valuable contribu- 
tions to progress in this direction made by the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology, under the guidance and inspiration of 
Prest. John D. Runkle. His very able reports give in full the 
history of the growth and working of their School of Mechanic 
Arts, and demonstrate fully the general practicability of the 
method employed. 

" The Imperial Technical School of Moscow was the first to 
show that it is best to teach an art before attempting to apply 
it ; that the mechanic arts can be taught to classes through a 
graded series of examples [or exercises], by the usual labora- 
tory methods which we employ in teaching the sciences. 
Making the art — and not the trade — fundamental, and then 
teaching the art by purely educational methods, is the Russian 
system. The system is instruction in the arts for the purpose 
of construction, and not construction for the purpose of 
instruction." 

Here is the point where the best manual training schools 
ctiffer radically from the ordinary system of apprenticeship. In 
the latter the learner adquires the " arts " involved in a piece 



278 MANUAL EDUCATION. [Chap. XI, 

of work incidentally, and generally without a conscious analy- 
sis ; in the former, the " arts " are made the direct object of his 
study and attention. Their subsequent combination (which 
may or may not follow in his school experience) is a very 
simple matter. 

Mr. Runkle illustrates this point as follows : " Every one is 
well aware that the successful study of any art — free-hand and 
linear drawing, or music instrumental or vocal, or painting — 
is only attainable when the first steps are strictly subject to the 
laws of gradation and succession ; when the student adheres to 
a definite method, thus surmounting, little by little, and by 
certain degrees, the difficulties to be encountered. All the arts 
just named possess a method of study which has been well 
worked out and defined, since they have long constituted a part 
of the education of the well-instructed classes. They have, 
therefore, become subject to scientific analysis and objects of 
investigation, with the view of defining those conditions which 
should render the study of them as easy and well regulated as 
possible." 

Let us, now, see how this idea will apply to tool-work upon 
metals or wood. Every manufactured article, whether it be 
a machine, or a piece of furniture, or a bridge, consists of a 
combination of a small number of typical forms or shapes more 
or less modified. Take, for instance, a piece of furniture. 
The joints are of the simplest character, — a plain mortise and 
tenon, or bored holes and cylindrical pins, all glued. The 
surfaces are either plane or regularly curved. The most diffi- 
cult point is accuracy in the angles, which is gained by using 
the try-square and working to line lines. If the furniture is 
carved, you will find on analysis that that work is the result of 
a very few elements variously repeated and combined. 

It is just so of a watch or a steam-engine, so far as essential 
shapes of the different parts, both in the fixed frame-work and 
in the moving members, are concerned ; they are very few in 
kind, the apparent variety consisting mainly in the size of the 
pieces. Now, is it not the most reasonable thing in the world 
to teach these mechanical elements separately, abstracted froin 
the machines into whose construction they enter ? When the 



Chap. XI.] COMBINING SIMI'LE ELEMENTS. 279 

young apprentice has been through with the alphabet of 
mechanical elements, so that in each case he knows what tools 
to use, and is able to execute the work with precision, you may 
be sure he is able to construct a machine from a given design, 
altho he never has done so. When you learned to write 
(to illustrate this point still further), you began with straight 
lines, then single curves and hooks, then double curves and 
ovals. These are the elements of penmanship. You next 
learned how to combine these elements to form the twenty-six 
letters of our alphabet. When you had learned to combine 
these letters into words, you had mastered the art of penman- 
ship, even if you had never written a sentence. Outside the 
three lessons I have mentioned, there is absolutely nothing to 
be learned. You may gain facility and improve constantl}^ in 
the execution of these steps, but notliing more. On the other 
hand, I have seen persons who could write their names, but noth- 
ing .else. They had committed to memory, with much patient 
labor, the complicated scrawls which they had been told rep- 
resented their names ; and the utter lack of discrimination 
with which they reproduced them showed that they knew 
nothing of the significance of particular lines and flourishes. 
These persons typify the extreme utilitarian wing of educators, 
who would teach nothing not directly productive of useful 
work. Why should such ever write " Evil communications 
corrupt good manners," when they are likely to be called upon 
for nothing beyond signing their names? My illustration fairly 
shows the difference between an art and a mere trade. 

Having reached a philosophical method of manual education, 
our next step is to arrange the elements into groups, and grade 
them in the groups according to the materials to be wrought 
upon, and the tools to be used. 

It is hardly necessary to add that parallel and simultaneously 
with the above runs a corresponding course of free-hand and 
mechanical drawing, the first and most important element of 
manual education. 

Much thought has been given to working out and properly 
grading the elements under each of these groups. Prest. 
Runkle's paper in the Forty-first Annual Report of the Massa- 



280 MANUAL EDUCATION. [Ohap. H, 

chusetts Board of Education gives complete their courses in 
vise-work and forging. The details of the other groups have 
not yet been fully worked out. 

The first course in vise-work consists of twenty-two designs 
or examples in filing, chipping, and sawing steel, cast and 
wrought iron, to be worked out separately by each student. 
The time allowed for the work is thirty lessons of four hours 
each, or one hundred and twenty hours in all. Although this 
is equal to only twelve days of ten hours each, the work of the 
students is pronounced by a committee from the State of Rhode 
Island to be superior to that of the ordinary apprentice of two 
years' standing. 

I can not venture upon more than a very brief analysis of this 
work as done by a single student, and kindly sent us by Prest. 
Runkle. Each piece was executed with the most suitable hand- 
tools, and the work is so graded that in turn all the tools are 
used. Each exercise has a new feature, but depends, to a 
certain extent, upon what has gone before. Each piece is 
stamped with a number indicating the degree of excellence in 
the workmanship. The class is told beforehand just what the 
points to be aimed at are ; and the relative importance of 
different points, in the critical estimate of the work by the 
instructor, is definitely shown. This clear analysis of all the 
points in an exercise makes each workman a good judge of 
workmanship. The careful analysis of each piece of filing given 
by Mr. Walberg, the designer of the exercise, accompanied by 
the heliotype-print illustrations, constitutes a very valuable con- 
tribution to educational literature. 

AN EXEKCISE IN FILING. 

Take, for example, No. 4. The blank furnished each member 
of the class consists of a flat piece of cast-iron planed on two 
opposite faces, with a round hole through it. The tools furnished 
are six files (each for a special purpose), and two try-squares, — 
one, four and one-half inch ; the other, one and one-half inch. 
The instructor says to his class, who are arranged in the filing 
and chipping shop, each with his complement of tools, — 

" This piece is to be made square and true around the edges ; 



€hap. XL] A LESSON IN FILING. 281 

and the round hole is to be made a square one, according to the 
lines I have marked on each plate. It is designed to teach 
the use of two new kinds of files, in addition to extending the 
use of those you have already had, and at the same time to show 
you how to get the outside edges square with each other without 
the aid of lines, using lines only where the new files are needed. 
One side or face of the piece is to be draw-filed (or smoothed) 
in finishing it, thus removing the lines marking the boundary 
of the square hole, provided the hole is finished accurately to 
the line, so that its removal will not destroy the evidence of 
careless work. 

" Twenty-five per cent will be allowed for filing the square 
hole accurately to the line on each face. 

" Fifteen per cent will be allowed for good corners on the 
inside. You will test your pieces with the small try-square. 
This point involves true plane faces to the holes. 

" Ten per cent will be allowed for making an outside edge 
square with an adjacent edge. 

" Twenty per cent for making all four edges square with each 
other. 

" Ten per cent for careful removal of all cross-marks. 

" Ten per cent for edges straight lengthwise. 

" Ten per cent for edges straight crosswise. 

"Total, one hundred per cent. The time allowed for this 
work is four hours. Begin with the square hole. Secure the 
blank in the vise, and use first the six-inch j)illy'i' bastard 
file." 

The instructor then explains the features of the new tools, 
and the method of using them. He also reminds them of their 
former exercises, and shows how they enter into the present 
one. All students then go on with their work for four hours, 
or until the task is done ; the instructor giving such individual 
assistance as may be necessary. The instructor in filing and 
chipping found it possible to teach a class of thirty-two boys, 
whose ages ranged from fifteen years upwards. 

I have pictured a single exercise ; and, with obvious changes, 
you can picture all. The same principle runs through the use 
of all kinds of tools and materials. This is the Russian method 



282 MANUAL EDUCATION. [Ohap. XI. 

ill practice. The visible results serve only to illustrate the train- 
ing, unless it be to use them as blanks for another exercise. 

Do you think young men would be interested in such work ? 
As a matter of fact, they are much interested. Every exercise 
has something new in it. A new surface is to be formed, or 
a new feature of some sort is to be added, and the interest 
is fresh. The Rhode Island committee already referred to 
report that they " found a class of thirty-two boys at work on 
a chipping exercise, with hammer and chisel, under the instruc- 
tion and constant supervision of an expert mechanic, employed 
as teacher of practical mechanics ; and it was easy to perceive 
that the class instruction in this branch of education was as 
systematic and simple as the teaching of a class in arithmetic or 
grammar in one of our best public schools." 

An exceedingly interesting and instructive experiment of the 
Russian method of tool-instruction was made in Boston, Mass., 
during the past two winters, by the 

INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL ASSOCIATION. 

The Association had discussed the importance and the feasi- 
bility of making manual education a part of public instruction. 
The first winter, they organized an evening class of thirty-two 
boys in wood-carving. Their ages ranged from twelve to six- 
teen. About half of them were still attending the day-school, 
the others were employed in stores and offices. A course of 
twenty-four lessons in wood-carving was prepared with special 
reference to securing the greatest amount of instruction with 
the least expenditure of material. It was not designed to make 
finished workmen, but to take advantage of the natural inclina- 
tion towards handicraft. The tools used were three in number, 
— the flat chisel, the gouge, and a veining-tool. Blocks of white 
wood six inches long, three inches wide, and one and one-half 
inches thick wer€ the material worked upon. Each bo}'- had 
his place at a work-bench four feet long by two and one-half 
feet in width. Each had a vise with wooden jaws and an iron 
screw ; a drawer with lock and key, in which the tools were 
kept ; and a gas-burner with a movable arm. The report of the 
committee in charge gives heliotypes of the various finished 



Chaf. XI.] A BOSTON EXPERIMENT IN 1877. 283 

blocks. Mr. Chaney says, " It will be noticed that no specific 
article was made in the school. The variety of manipulations 
and change of patterns were enough to maintain the freshness 
of the scholars' interest, without introducing the manufacture 
of any articles of trade or commerce. The object of the 
school was, not to educate cabinet-makers, or artisans of any 
special name, but to give the boys an acquaintance with certain 
manipulations which would be equally useful in many different 
trades. ^Instruction, not construction, was the purpose of the 
school.' " 

The success of this experiment led the committee to express 
the belief that it would be easy to establish, in connection with 
all the public grammar schools (corresponding to what are 
called in this city branch high schools), an annex for elementary 
instruction in the use of the half-dozen universal tools ; i.e., the 
hammer, saw, plane, chisel, file, and square. " Three or four 
hours a week, for one year only of the grammar-school course, 
would be enough to give the boys that intimacy with tools, and 
that encouragement to the inborn inclination to handicraft, 
and that guidance to its use, for want of which so many young 
men now drift into overcrowded and uncongenial occupations, 
or lapse into idleness or vice." 

Encouraged by the success of the first experiment, the Asso- 
ciation decided to adopt for their second experiment a course 
of instruction in the use of the common wood-working hand- 
tools. As I have said, the Russian system involves class in- 
struction ; the individual needs nothing, unless it be repetition 
and caution. The Association believed that the general instruc- 
tion could be given best by a carefully printed text, precisely 
setting forth every detail essential to the best performance of 
each manipulation. They also determined that in the prepara- 
tion of this text every thing that forethought, study, and expe- 
rience could do should be done. They therefore employed the 
best service which they could command in the preparation and 
critical revision of a series of primary lessons in the use of wood- 
working hand-tools, to be followed by a similar series of more 
advanced lessons in applications of these tools to the production 
of typical forms in carpentry and joinery. 



281 MANUAL EDUCATION. [Ohap. XL 

The first eleven lessons are as follows : — 

1. Use of the cross-cut saw, sawing to line. 

2. Use of the hammer, striking square blows. 

3. Use of the splitting-saw, sawing to line. 

4. Use of the jack-plane, smoothing rough surfaces. 

5. Use of the hammer, driving nails vertically. 

6. Use of the splitting-saw, sawing at exact angles to upper 

surface. 

7. Use of the jack-plane, setting the plane-iron. 

8. Use of the hammer, driving nails horizontally. 

9. Use of the bit and brace, boring in exact positions. 

10. Use of the mallet and chisel, mortising. 

11. Use of the jack-plane, producing surfaces which intersect at 

exact angles. 

Auxiliary drawing exercises in laying out the work by 
measuring and lining are incidental to all the lessons. 

MANUAL TRAINING IN THE POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL OF 
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY. 

I have given full accounts of the educational experience of 
Boston, for the reason that it has really taken the lead, so far as 
this country is concerned, in working out the problem of manual 
education, and because there has lacked neither the money nor 
the students necessary to give the method the fullest possible 
test ; and yet I could have quoted our own experience, and 
made a fair showing. St. Louis is not without interest in this 
matter ; and we have not failed to find those who were both able 
and willing to make it possible for us to break ground, as 
it were, in this new field of labor and study. Full twenty 
years ago some half-score of the noble men of this city were 
filled with the idea of establishing here a polytechnic school, 
which should be truly and literally such. In their generous 
plan the many arts were not only to be scientifically expounded 
by able professors, but they were to be illustrated l^j practical 
machines and expert workmen. I do but simple justice to Col. 
John O'Fallon, John How, Gerard B. Allen, Ralph Sellew, 
James B. Eads, Giles F. Filley, and others whom I am unable 
to name, when I say, that, in contributing to the means where- 



Chap. XL] THE FIRST POLYTECHNIC BUILDING. 285 

with to erect that magnificent polytechnic building on the 
corner of Chestnut and Seventh Streets, it was their ambition 
to do just what we find it possible to do now with less than one- 
tenth the money. Undertaken with the highest motives, but 
with no clearly defined plan, the enterprise was virtually a 
failure. The building was begun before the war ; at different 
times the work was suspended, and then renewed at enormous 
cost. Nine long years were consumed ere the building was 
finished, and then it was found totally unsuited to the use 
intended. These plain words are not said in criticism ; for the 
]ioble aims and devotion of John How, and the generous hand 
of Col. O'Fallon, call only for a tribute of gratitude. They and 
their co-laborers were struggling to realize an idea which it is 
our privilege to-day to carry to successful issue. 

For the last five years we have had a fair workshop, in which 
the students of this polytechnic school have worked fo a certain 
extent ; but only during the present year have we been able to 
work with much system. With the aid of our staunch friend 
Mr. Gottlieb Conzelman, we fitted up during last summer a 
wood-working shop with work-benches and vises for eighteen 
students; a second shop for vise-work upon metals, and for 
machine-work ; and a third, with a single outfit of blacksmith's 
tools. During the last few months systematic instruction has 
been given to different classes in all these shops. ^Special atten- 
tion has been paid to the use of wood-working hand-tools, to 
wood-turning, and to filing. The age of the students has 
ranged from fifteen to about twenty-two. None of the stu- 
dents have had much experience, and of course you can not 
expect nicely finished work. The specimens are not shown on 
account of the excellence of the workmanship, but because 
they illustrate our method. 

The amount of time given to shop-work has generally been 
only four hours per week, — two lessons of two hours each. 
The junior class in mechanical engineering gave eight hours. 
Shop-work has been done in the afternoon, and there has been 
no less work required in the morning recitations than formerly. 
Tho four hours per week, which is equivalent to two days 
per month, seems too small an allowance to be of much practi- 



286 MANUAL EDUCATION. [ Chap, XI. 

cal value, four years would, on the present plan, suffice to give 
an excellent idea of the uses of all our tools, the properties of 
materials, and considerable manual skill. I have yet to hear 
from the parent who does not approve of our plan of shop-work. 
Our running expenses in the shop are now about a hundred 
dollars per month ; but we could, without perceptible increase 
of cost, double our present number of students. No extra fee 
has been charged on account of shop-work ; but, without per- 
manent endowment, this arrangement could not long continue. 
The experience of this year has been invaluable to us ; and we 
are now clear in our conviction that a series of commodious 
instruction-shops, well furnished with machinery and tools, and 
go liberally endowed as to require only a nominal fee from 
students, would be of inestimable value to the youth of this 
city. 

It is well understood that many students can not wisely un- 
dertake the full course of intellectual study we have laid down 
for regular classes. A decided aptitude for handicraft is not 
unfrequently coupled with a strong aversion to, and unfitness 
for, abstract and theoretical investigations. There can be no 
doubt that in such cases more time should be spent in the shop, 
and less in the lecture and recitation room. The adoption of 
this principle would soon lead to the formation of a class in 
what might be called the " Mechanical Course," whose students 
should work in the shop daily two or three hours, following at 
the same time a somewhat abridged course of study. . 

It is time for me to close. Much could be said in regard to 
the extension of manual education to all the grades of our 
schools, from the lowest to the highest ; but I must be brief. 
The manual education, which begins in the kindergarten, 
before the children are able to read a word, should never cease. 
The physical powers of a child develop first, and their cultiva- 
tion should at least keep pace with the growth and develop- 
ment of his mental faculties. Just how we shall supply the 
missing links in the chain which joins the kindergarten with 
the fully equipped shops of the polytechnic school, we can not 
with certainty suggest. The problem is an open one, and thou- 
sands of earnest and intelligent educators are devoting them- 



Chap. XI.] A RATIONAL EDUCATION. 287 

selves to its solution. I trust that St. Louis will in this, as in 
many other educational matters, contribute largely. At present 
we have drawing and penmanship, both of which are essentially 
manual. To this I would add, tinting with a brush, mixing 
colors, weaving and braiding, molding of tiles and the making, 
of mosaics, models of geometrical and natural forms. Girls 
should be taught needle-craft, and, in the higher grades, the 
elements of cooking. 

Suppose a visitor from another planet were to visit us in our 
homes and in our places of business. Suppose he looked into 
the whole economy of our domestic and social lives, and then 
was requested to map out the best course of instruction for 
both girls and boys. Do you think he would fail to put early 
on the list for girls the proper preparation of food for the table ? 
Do we not saj food, clothing, and shelter are the three essentials 
of physical existence ? Then, let food come boldly into our 
program. Let systematic instruction be given in the all- 
important art of cooking. And would not our visitor insist 
that our boys should be taught to supplement their feeble 
strength by the all-powerful tools with which we subdue all 
the kingdoms of nature ? At ten years, give boys knives, and 
gouges, and hammers, and saws, and squares. Let them carve 
in soft wood and plaster, and learn to strike true and square 
blows. Carlyle says the choicest present you can make a child 
is a tool. " Be it knife or gun, for construction or destruction ; 
either way it is for work, for change." At twelve they are 
ready to use the plane, the chisel, and the whole chest of 
tools. 

Until you reach machine-tools, the shop outfit may be of the 
simplest character. Benches, vises, and a half dozen tools for 
each student in a class are all that you need ; the whole cost 
would hardly exceed that of the furniture in an ordinary school- 
room. 

Three classes of say twenty-five each, or seventy-five boys, 
could be taught a two-hour lesson in the same room in a day. 
If each boy had but two lessons per week, three times that 
number of boys could be accommodated on different days, or 
two hundred and twenty-five in all. It thus appears that one 



288 MANUAL EDUCATION. [Chap. XL 

room, properly fitted up, would be enough for either the academy 
of this university or either of the city high schools. A com- 
petent teacher, at say one thousand dollars, in such a room, 
would, I think, be as valuable to the interests of education 
as any in the whole corps. Such annexes I commend strongly 
to school boards. 

The more fully furnished shops, containing the whole list of 
forges, engines, and machine-tools, must of course be left to 
private institutions founded by such men as Stevens, Hopkins, 
Cornell, and those whose names I have mentioned to-night.^ 

1 It must be remembered that this address was given in 1878 before the pres- 
ent Manual Training School was established. Its direct influence was soon plainly 
seen. Mr. Samuel Cuiiples, after carefully reading a printed copy, proposed that 
the experiment be tried. The result was the speedy organization of the Manual 
Training School, as related on page 7. 



Ohap.Tn.] PBOViniNG FOR TUB FUTURE. 289 



CHAPTER XII. 

EXTRACTS FROM THE PROSPECTUS PUBLISHED IN 
NOVEMBER, 1879.1 

THE ORIGIN AND PURPOSE OF THE SCHOOL. 

THE Manual Training School owes its existence to the con- 
viction, on the part of its founders, that the interests of St. 
Louis demand for young men a system of education which shall 
fit them for the actual duties of life, in a more direct and positive 
manner than is done in the ordinary American school. 

St. Louis already has large manufacturing as well as commer- 
cial interests, and we all expect to see these interests greatly 
increase. We see in the future an increasing demand for 
thoroughly trained men to take positions in manufacturing 
establishments as superintendents, as foremen, and as skilled 
workmen. The youth of to-day are to be the men of the next 
generation. It is important that we keep their probable life- 
work in view in providing for their education. Excellent as 
are our established schools, both j)ublic and private, it must be 
admitted that they still leave something to be desired ; they do 
not, and probably they can not, cover the whole ground. 

This conviction of the incompleteness of present means and 
methods of education has found utterance in many ways. 
Some of the best friends of education have expressed them- 
selves in strong and suggestive language. All such agree in 
the conclusion that the main deficiency is in the direction of 
manual education. 



1 These extracts are given partly to show the clearly defined position of the 
school at its start. That position has been abundantly strengthened by experi- 
ence, and we have been enabled to make a much fuller statement in Chap. IX. 
and elsewhere. 



290 EXTRACTS FROM THE PROSPECTUS OF 1879. [Chap. m 

Hence, as has so often been said, nearly all our skilled work- 
men are imported. Our best machinists, miners, weavers, 
watch-makers, iron-workers, draughtsmen, and artisans of every 
description, come from abroad; and this is not because our 
native-born are deficient in natural tact or ability, nor because 
they are in point of fact above and beyond such occupations, 
but because they are without suitable means and opportunities 
for getting the proper training. 

About two years ago the Legislature of the State of New 
Jersey appointed a commission to investigate and report on 
the course the State ought to take in the interest of the higher 
order of manufactures. The commission consisted of Messrs. 
Samuel E. Brown, Thomas N. Dale, and Prof. Robert H. 
Thurston, who acted as secretary and compiled the report. 
In their report of 1878, the commission strongly advocated the 
establishment of trade schools (i.e., manual training schools) 
in which should be practically taught the essential principles 
which underlie the industries. By such a course alone, they 
argue, can Ave, as a manufacturing people, hope to compete 
successfully with the workmen and manufacturers of Europe. 

The arguments of the commission apply as forcibly in St. 
Louis as in New Jersey. 

There is, doubtless, much to be learned in the organization 
and administration of a manual training school on American 
soil ; but its value to a manufacturing community has been 
demonstrated beyond question, and its essential features have 
been clearly determined. 

It is believed that, to all students, without regard to plans for the 
future, the value of the training which can he got in shop-work, 
spending only from four to twelve hours per week, is abundantly 
sufficient to justify the expense of materials, tools, and expert 
teachers. 

One great object of the school will be to foster a higher 

appreciation of the value and dignity of intelligent labor, and 

the worth and respectability of laboring men. A boy who sees 

nothing in manual labor but mere brute force despises both 

'the labor and laborer. With the acquisition of skill in him* 



Chap. Xn.] GENERAL VALUE OF MANUAL EXERCISES. 291 

self, come the ability and the willingness to recognize skill in 
his fellows. When once he appreciates skill in handicraft, he 
regards the workman with sympathy and respect. 

In a manual training school, tool-work can never descend 
into drudgery. The tasks are not long, nor are they unneces- 
sarily repeated. In this school, whatever may be the social 
standing or importance of the fathers, the sons will go together 
to the same work, and be tested physically as well as intellect- 
ually by the same standards. The result in the past has been, 
and in the future it will continue to be, a truer estimate of 
laboring and manufacturing people, and a sounder judgment on 
all social problems. If the manual training school should do 
nothing else, it would still justify all the efforts in its behalf if it 
helps in the solution of the difficulties between labor and capital. 

In these ways it is hoped that the Manual Training School 
will serve the interests of the people of St. Louis. The atten- 
tion of parents and educators is respectfully called to the 
curriculum of study and shop-practice given below, and all are 
earnestly invited to consider how far this school meets their 
individual wants. 

COURSE OF STUDY.l 

The experience of several years in our own workshops,^ the 
ex]3erience of many somewhat similar schools in this country 
and in Europe, and a careful consideration of the interests of 
St. Louis, enable us to sketch out with confidence the proper 
curriculum of work and study for our pupils. 

As stated in the ordinance, the course of instruction will 
cover three years ; and the school-time of the pupils will be 
about equally divided between mental and manual exercises. 
Neither intellectual nor physical labor will be carried to the 
extent of weariness. 

The change from recitation to the shop, and from shop to 
study and recitation, will be agreeable and healthful, keeping 
both mind and body fresh and vigorous. 

In mathematics the course of instruction will be thorough, 
but not extended. Arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and plane 

1 For the present course of study, see Appendix I. 2 gee Chapter I. 



292 EXTRACTS FROM THE PROSPECTUS OF 1879. [Ohap. XH. 

trigonometry will be studied in succession. The application 
of these branches will be made in bookkeeping, mechanical 
drawing, physics, and mechanics. 

Some attention will be given to physical geography, and the 
principles of chemistry. 

The English language and literature will be carefully studied 
throughout the course. Every graduate of the school will have 
a fair command of the English language, whether in writing or 
speaking. 

History, practical ethics, and political economy will each 
find a place on the program, — the treatment of each subject 
being adapted to the capacity of the class. 

Special attention will be paid to drawing during the whole 
course. Drawing is the short-hand language of modern science. 
Careful drawings are to technically educated people what pic- 
tures are to children. They show at a glance what it is not in 
the power of words to express. It is a universal language, and 
should be read and understood by all men. 

MANUAL EDUCATION. 

Thus far our course of study is familiar. We come now to 
the manual training proper — to that feature which is to distin- 
guish this school from those around it. How shall we train the 
hand to keep pace with the eye and the mind, and to fit it well 
for its future uses? 

During the last hundred years the world has made rapid 
strides in the invention and use of tools. We do nothing with 
the unaided hand ; everything is done by tools. 

Tool-instruction, then, is what is wanted, — instruction in the 
nature, theory, and use of tools. Thus shall we place within 
reach the key which is to unlock the mysteries of our busy 
shops and factories. 

But which are the tools whose use we are to teach? Before 
answering this question, it is to be observed that the apparently 
great variety in tools and mechanical processes arises from 
difterent combinations of very simple elements. The number 
of hand-tools is small ; one can easily count them on his fingers. 
They are the a.r, the saw, the plane, the hammer, the square, the 



Chap. Xn.] A LIBERAL TRAINING. 293 

chisel^ and the file. The study of a tool involves an examination 
of its form, and the theory of its action, as well as its actual us*', 
at the bench or forge. After the hand tools our pupils must 
become familiar with the typical machine tools which are chiefly 
employed in mechanical pursuits. A knowledge of materials 
and processes is as important as an acquaintance with tools. 

POLICY OF THE SHOP: NO ARTICLES MADE FOR SALE. 

Throughout the course of shop-work, in addition to the ab- 
stract exercises, which are designed to give certain practices 
and illustrate certain processes, actual tools or part of tools 
needed, either in the shop or in the laboratories of the univer- 
sity, will from time to time be made, as the classes become fitted 
for such practical work. Aside from these, however, the prod- 
ucts of the shops are not intended to have any commercial value ; 
in other words, the shops will not manufacture for the market. 
Whatever may be the advantages of making things which are 
to be subject to the tests of trade, we think that in this case the 
objections outweigh them. 

In the first place, the management of this school does not 
propose that its shops shall enter into competition with manu- 
facturing establishments. Proprietors of machine-shops and 
factories need not look upon this institution as a rival. 

In the next place, the scope of a single trade is too narrow 
for educational purposes. Our manual education should be as 
broad and liberal as our intellectual. A shop which manufac- 
tures for the market, and expects a revenue from the sale of its 
products, is necessarily confined to salable work, and a system- 
atic and progressive series of lessons is impossible. If the object 
of the shop is education, a student should be allowed to discon- 
tinue any task or process the moment he has learned to do it 
well. If the shop were intended to make money, the students 
would be kept at work on what they could do best, at the 
expense of breadth and versatility. 

It is claimed that students take more interest in working 
upon something, which, when finished, has intrinsic value, than 
they do in abstract exercises. This is quite possible, and proper 
use should be made of this fact ; but, if all education were limited 



294 EXTRACTS FROM THE PROSPECTUS OF 1879. [chap, Xn. 

to such practical examples, our schools would be useless. The 
idea of a school is. that pupils are to be graded and taught in 
classes ; the result aimed at being, not at all the objective prod- 
uct or finished work, but the intellectual and physical growth 
which comes from the exercise. Of what use is the elaborate 
solution in algebra, the minute drawing, or the faithful transla- 
tion after it is well done ? Do we not erase the one, and burn 
the other, with the clear conviction that the only thing of value 
was the discipline, and that that is indestructible? 

Now, we proceed in manual education on precisely the same 
plan. We abstract all the mechanical processes and manual 
arts^ and typical tools of the trades and occupations of men, 
arrange a systematic course of instruction in the same, and 
then incorporate it into our system of education. Thus, with- 
out teaching any one trade, we teach the essential mechanical 
principles of all. 

MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOLS COMPARED WITH ORDINARY 

SHOPS. 

These two paragraphs are from the New Jersey report re- 
ferred to on page 290 : — 

" Experience has shown these systematically and intelligently 
conducted schools to be far more efficient means of education 
and training for the workmen than even the best managed mill. 
The impossibility of giving methodical instruction in all matters 
of detail, or of accommodating the time and the movements of 
the instructor to the capacity and progress of the learner ; the 
jealousy and the unaccommodating spirit of overseers and 
managers, and the utter impossibilit}'' of permitting the finan- 
cial results of commercial work to be affected by the interests 
or the blunders of the novice, combine to preclude, absolutely, 
all effective tuition in the mill. 

" Again, the mill is the more successful, commercially, as it 
confines itself the more strictly to a particular grade or a spe- 
cial class of goods, for the production of which it is best fitted, 
and as it confines the operatives, each to a certain department, 
and to a single and never-changed kind of work ; it is thus 
impossible to reconcile the interests of the learner, who must 



Chap. XIL] practical VALUE OF TOOL-EDUCATION. 295 

seek a knowledge of all departments, and of every operation, with 
those of the mill-owner who is most prosperous when each indi- 
vidual is confined to the task for which he or she is best fitted." 

This extract is inserted for the purpose of meeting the objec- 
tion, which has been often made, that, after all, the shop of the 
manufacturer is the best place for a young man to learn the use 
of tools. Abundant testimony proves that the objection is not 
sound. In the shop of a manufacturer, one readily learns the 
details of the business. But in an instruction-shop, where 
the only duty of the expert teacher is to teach, the pupil learns 
to be a good workman much quicker than in an ordinary shop ; 
and not only does he make more rapid progress in the right 
direction, but he is saved from falling into clumsy habits and 
methods of Avork. Too often is the ordinary apprentice left to 
find out the right way by personal hard experience, as tho 
he could not profit by the experience of others. 

The practical value of school-shop instruction has been shown 
in countless instances. Thousands and thousands of the skilled 
workmen, engineers, foremen, and manufacturers, now in France 
and Germany, got their tool-education and their intellectual 
training simultaneously in a school. 

Almost without exception the graduates of the school of 
" Arts and Trades," and the " Apprentice School," both in the 
city of Paris, readily find and fill positions as skilled workmen, 
from which, as soon as they have learned the special require- 
ments of a particular trade or occupation, they rapidly rise to 
places of trust and responsibility. The ordinary shop-trained 
workman is not a draughtsman, has little knowledge of either 
mathematics or physics, and no skill or finish at either writing 
or speaking. Only those endowed with remarkable intellectual 
power rise above the plane of a good mechanic. 

Prof. Thompson, the principal of the Worcester Free . Indus- 
trial Institute (a school admirably equipped with shop and 
tool facilities), says that it is confidently expected that "the 
graduates in the department of mechanics will be as skillful 
mechanics as ordinary apprentices who have served three years 
in a shop, in addition to the advantages of a solid education." 
This expectation seems to be well founded. An examination 



296 EXTRACTS FROM THE PROSPECTUS OF 1879. [ohap. XH. 

of the record of 1878 shows that out of their seventy-four grad- 
uates in the department of mechanics, at least fifty-three per 
cent were either engaged in manual labor, or they had, through 
their superior training, won positions where they were direct- 
ing the labor of others. 

So far as we can judge from the brief experience of the 
workshops of Washington University, shop-work, when properly 
managed, results in the acquisition in a very short time of a 
high degree of skill, and the establishment of a permanent 
liking for mechanical pursuits. 

Whatever may be the final occupation of individual cases, 
we may be sure that the legitimate result of this school will be 
that an increased number of young men will be led into 
mechanical pursuits, and that many of them will look back to 
this school as the institution which helped them to be both 
" willing and able to worky 



Chap. Xin.J liB' SAMUEL JOHNSON'S IDEAS. 297 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE PROVINCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. 

DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON considered education as needful 
to the "embellishments of life." In his day very few 
were educated at all, and those few for society or public service. 
The toiling masses had no education, were supposed to need no 
education, and, while discussing details, educators and scholars 
took no thought of what we call the common people. 
Said Johnson (in his " Life of Milton ") : — 

" The truth is, that the knowledge of external nature, and the sciences 
•which that knowledge requires or includes, are not the great or the frequent 
business of the human mind. Whether we provide for action or conversa- 
tion, whether we wish to be useful or pleasing, the first requisite is the reli- 
gious and moral knowledge of right and wrong ; the next is an acquaintance 
with the history of mankind, and with those examples which may be said to 
embody truth, and prove by events the reasonableness of opinions. Pru- 
dence and justice are virtues and excellences of all times and of all places. 
We are perpetually moralists, but we are geometricians only by chance. 
Our intercourse with intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations upon 
matter are voluntary arid at leisure. Physiological learning [by which he 
means a knowledge of the laws and phenomena of the external world] is of 
such rare emergence, that one may know another half his life without 
being able to estimate his skill in hydrostatics or astronomy; but his moral 
and prudential character immediately appears. 

" Those authors, therefoi'e, are to be read at schools that supply most 
axioms of prudence, most principles of moral truth, and most matei-ials for 
conversation; and those purposes are best served by poets, oi'ators, and 
historians." 

This statement was, no doubt, entirely adequate to the 
demands of Johnson's time. Polite conversation and elegant 
manners were the chief characteristics of an age in which Ches- 



298 THE PROVINCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. [Chap. XIH. 

terfield was a bright and shining light. Like the " Athenians 
and strangers" in the time of St. Paul, educated people "spent 
their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear, some 
new thing." With the dull, hard-working, unlettered crowds^ 
that plodded on in the steps of their fathers and grandfathers, 
they had nothing to do ; and for them they had no educational 
theories. It is interesting to picture, in fancy, the bewilder- 
ment of a Sam Johnson in the learned circles of this scientific 
and industrial age. Imagine him attempting to join in the con- 
versations of our British and American associations for the 
advancement of science, or in our halls of exchange, where 
the active minds of our generation do mostly congregate. He 
would find it difficult, in spite of the wonderful vigor of his 
intellect, to be either useful or ornamental, tho he could easily 
be amusing. 

But how many there are who still cling to the educational 
creed of Dr. Johnson ! Ruskin, thinking to be sure of the same 
class of people as Johnson, says that the greater part of the 
education of a gentleman consists in a knowledge of history 
and the ancient classics. There was a time when a medical 
student must read Galen in the original tongue: hence he must 
have learned Greek, and he must write his prescriptions in 
Latin. The student of theology must read the Bible in Greek 
and in Hebrew ; the law student must read in the original 
Latin the Corpus Juris and the Institutes of Justinian ; the 
student of philosophy must translate for himself Plato and 
Aristotle, and all scholarly productions were to be written in 
Latin. The learned professions were then properly so called, 
for their requirements separated them from all other avocations. 

But the times have greatly changed. No student, medical 
or otherwise, reads Galen. Galen's theory of medicine was 
founded on Aristotle's theory of the constitution of matter ; 
and when, after standing as unquestioned authority for a thou- 
sand years, the theory of Aristotle fell before modern science, 
the theory of Galen fell with it. 

As to studying Greek and Hebrew for the better understand- 
ing of the Bible, it should be generally admitted that such is 
not the case. The average theological student, on the contrary, 



Chap. Xin.J THE DELUSIONS OF DERIVATIONS. 299 

learns his Grreek and his Hebrew from his Bible. The force of a 
Greek particle, and the exact meanrng" of a Hebrew dot or dash, 
he gathers from the context in the " King James " or the 
" Revised " translation. 

Thus are the tables completely turned in classical study. 
We put the meaning of English words and modern ideas into 
Greek and Latin and Hebrew roots, and then claim that it 
increases our knowledge of our own tongue to be able to pro- 
nounce the classic originals, which we have ourselves clothed 
with meaning. If one is to read an author in the original, it is 
obvious that he ought first to learn the language thoroughly, 
and then read his author ; otherwise, he is corrupting the lan- 
guage by giving its words modern significations, and is putting 
ideas into his author's head which he never dreamed of.^ 

But this is a digression. T have no wish to oppose the legiti- 
mate study of Greek or Hebrew or any other dead language. 
In fact, I approve the studj^ of at least one inflected language 
(though not for the sake of thoroughly learning it, or for reading 
its literature in the original). But I do desire to call attention 
to two things : first, that the former utilitarian motives for the 
study of the ancient languages no longer exist; and secondly, 
that the usual utilitarian arguments adduced for the present 
superficial study of those languages — viz., to throw light upon 
the meaning of modern words derived from those early roots — 
are exceedingly weak or altogether void. I do not deny that 
it is reasonable and satisfactory, as a mere matter of curiosity, 
for one to know why a telephone is so called ; but I do deny 
that it adds one particle to my knowledge of a telephone to 
know that the name was coined from two Greek words. 

It must be remembered that what I mean by knowledge is not, 
in a case of this sort, to be derived from books. To really 
know what a telephone is, is an achievement of no small impor- 

1 I remember hearing a teacher dilate upon tlie value of derivations for giving 
information as to the force of vrords. He instanced the word "cosmopolitan,". 
and pointed out cosmos from xdcr/aos, " world," and politan from ttoAi'tt)!, " citizen; " 
hence cosmopolitan, " a citizen of the world." Now it was evident that his idea 
of the force of TroAtrr)? was obtained not from Aristotle, or from Demosthenes, but 
from the English word citizen ; and his notion of (fdo-|ixos was derived from his 
antecedent knowledge of the very ivord, cosmopolitan, which he was trying to define. 



300 THE PROVINCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. [chap. XIIL 

tance, and is utterly beyond the horizon of both Aristotle and 
Socrates ; but that knowledge gained, it is absurd to suppose 
that the name of the. instrument can add either force or clear- 
ness to one's conception of the thing. 

It is only when one has no means of information, except the 
name, that it gives any information. Of course such informa- 
tion is exceedingly inadequate, and ought never to satisfy. 
The tendency of philological study is to accept derivation as a 
sufficient explanation of the force of words. In my opinion, 
there is much to be said on the other side. Take, for example, 
the word citizen used above. Is it helpful or not to the present 
exact meaning and force of that ivord to know that it means, ety- 
mologically, " one belonging to a city "?i 

Education is too large to be enclosed in the walls of a school- 
room ; hence I shall speak chiefly of school education, and I 
shall not attempt a new definition of even that. We are 
pretty well agreed on certain elements and spheres of develop- 
ment. 

The universe has two spheres, — one of matter, the other of 
mind. To be prepared for one's work in both, one must be 
trained in both. 

Perception, memory, and judgment are to be developed, 
cultivated, and trained. 

These mental faculties, however divided and subdivided, are 
to be treated in a rational manner, that the mind may possess 
what we call power. This is the choicest fruit of education ; 
and it may be secured — that is, we may suppose that it is 
secured — through the instrumentality of a universe, both of 
matter and of mind^ quite unlike the one in which we live, — a 
universe whose physical and mental laws and facts and phenom- 
ena are differjent from ours. But a being thus trained would 
possess power only in the sphere in which it had been trained. 
In another and different universe it would be powerless. 

Consider for a moment the condition of a being, say an angel 

1 I once read an elaborate essay which was mainly occupied in attempting to 
make the meaning and the present demands of education clear to an audience 
of American teachers, by discussing the meaning of educere as used by Horace 
and Cicero. 



Chap.xin.] th:e source of power. 301 

from the heights of heaven, a bright, intelligent spirit from that 
celestial sphere where our material, sensuous laws do not obtain, 
transported for the first time to this earth, and incarnated as 
we are. How utterly powerless would this powerful being be ! 
He would not know the meaning of a single sight nor sound, 
odor nor flavor ; he would not know up from down, heat from 
cold, heavy from light, long from short ; he would be, in truth, 
as helpless as an infant, and he could begin life here in no 
way but as an infant. In fact, he could begin only as we 
began ; grow in knowledge and power as we gi'ew ; develop 
and acquire culture and skill as we have acquired them. Bacon 
was then right when he said that Knowledge was Power. The 
things we really knoiv are not the things we have merely read 
about or heard about, but the things we have lived, have ex- 
perienced, have been sensible of. All that the angel could 
bring from another sphere is capacity for power, not power 
itself. Power over things external to one's self can come only 
through growth and personal experience of external things, as 
an oak can come from an acorn only by going through the 
whole process of growth. 

A knowledge of the facts, phenomena, and relations of the 
mental and physical worlds in which we are to live is, then, 
the basis of our power ; and in so far as we devote ourselves to 
the acquisition of facts or to the observation of the phenomena 
and relations of other worlds, or of imaginary worlds, which 
are unlike ours, then so far our labor is without fruit. 

Now, a thousand to the contrary notwithstanding, I insist 
that public education should aim to develop power, — power 
to take -care of one's self, power to discharge one's duties to his 
family and to the State, power to make the most of one's self. 

How shall this power be developed ? One says by studying 
the orators, poets, and historians ; another says by learning to 
read, write, and cipher ; another, by learning to shoot, to ride, 
to row, to sail, to swim, to vault, to box, to run races, to drive 
a four-horse chariot; still another says power is to be developed 
by going into the streets, and sharpening one's wits by contact 
with all sorts of men ; and another, by going into the fields, and 
studying plants and insects, the earth beneath his feet, and the 



802 THE PROVINCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. [Chap. XIIL 

heavens above his head. In all these paths powerful men have 
walked, and then- admirers have not been slow to claim for each 
method in turn a preeminent value. 

A judicial mind at once sees that all are right, and all are 
wrong. It would be clearly unfortunate to train all by any one 
of these methods. Power is not all of one kind, and the world 
wants a great variety of powers ; and some who would fail by 
one road may succeed by another. 

But how is one to know which path to take without first try- 
ing them all, since not the road alone, but the traveler is to be 
taken into account? Clearly, intelligent choice can be exer- 
cised only when the chief characteristics of both roads and 
traveler are fairly comprehended. Education, then, must be 
"all around," and many-sided, unless the right of choice is 
denied. At this point I think we can all agree. But now 
comes the question : How much of this must the school under- 
take, and how much must be left to the home and other influ- 
ences? Here we sliall differ. One points to the past, and says, 
" Thus did our fathers, and so must we " ; as tho we, who refuse 
to do other things as our fathers did them, and who persist in 
doing a thousand things which our fathers never dreamed of, 
must still conduct school education in the old-fashioned way. 
To speak truly, it is as absurd to consult Plato or Cicero or 
Milton or Samuel Johnson or Benjamin Franklin or Daniel 
Webster as to how we shall teach school in this year of our 
Lord, 1887, as it would be to consult them as to how we shall 
build our houses, cultivate our crops, fight our battles, travel 
over land and sea, communicate our thoughts, light our streets, 
or amuse our children. 

" In these days of repeating rifles. Harvard sent me and my 
classmates out into the strife equipped with shields and swords 
and javelins," said Charles Francis Adams, Jr., in his remark- 
able Phi Beta Kappa address. " We can not continue in this 
age full of modern artillery to turn out our boys to do battle 
in it, equipped only with the sword and shield of the ancient 
Gladiator," says Huxley, using the same striking figure. 

Sir Lyon Playfair changes the metaphor, but is none the less 
expressive. What he protests against is not literary study, but 



Chap. Xni.] A PERPLEXING AN03IALY. 303 

the exclusion of those modern subjects which bear directly 
upon the duties and responsibilities of life. He says, " In a 
scientific and keenly competitive age, an exclusive education in 
the dead languages is a perplexing anomaly. The flowers of 
literature should be cultivated and gathered, tho it is not wise 
to send men into our fields of industry to gather the harvest, 
when they have been taught only to cull the poppies, and 
to push aside the wheat." (British Association Address, 1885.) 

Another says we must teach mainly the love of the beautiful, 
while the useful must be left to take care of itself: so he urges 
the study of art and music and poetry and eloquence ; beauty 
of form, life, and manner. 

Another declares that a school is for intellectual training, and 
that neither morality nor a preparation for the business of life 
is admissible. 

Another declares that a thorough preparation for the business 
of life is the main function of a schook And so on. 

In an industrial, scientific age, in which ecclesiasticism is 
either dead or dying, in which monarchism is fading away with 
the decay of the warlike spirit, in which all men are equal before 
the law, — we must invent, among other inventions, our insti- 
tutions of education. Nothing can be more appropriate than 
the figure about putting new wine into new bottles, if we could 
preserve the wine. What, then, shall the school attempt to give ? 

There can be no question about the three R's,^ tho I can 
not refrain from urging that children shall not be taught to read 
or repeat language which they do not understand. As soon as 
they learn by any rational method a new word or phrase, let 
them learn to write it, and to recognize it at sight, whether in 
print or in script. And in arithmetic let the abstract methods 
be applied in concrete examples as frequently and as variously 
as possible. The two cautions I would urge are : that instruc- 
tion in arithmetic should be carefully graded to the ability of 
the pupils ; and that the slang of banks, brokers' oflices, and 

1 " The uneducated look upon reading and writing as education. There is an 
age when these become practically indispensable, but they do not in themselves 
educate; they are simply its instruments, tho most potent ones." — Mrs. Horace 
Mann. 



304 THE PROVINCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. [Ohap. XIH 

halls of exchange be excluded. This slang, which soon becomes 
the technique of trade, has no more place in the schoolroom than 
have the legal phrases of the lawyer, the medical terms of the 
physician, or the technical vocabulary of the engineer. 

Neither should there be any difference of opinion as to the 
propriety of studying literature, geography, and history, as 
pupils become old enough to do so with profit. By all means 
give them Bryant and Milton and Longfellow and Shakespere 
and Homer, and give frequent, nay daily, practice in writing 
English, after the model of our best prose writers. Do not be 
afraid to teach pupils to consciously imitate good prose writers 
one after another. Do not be afraid of thereby preventing the 
formation of an original style. Most original styles should 
have been prevented, in my opinion. If one finds that the style 
of an Irving, an Alcott, a Howells, or an Addison meets his 
wants, by all means let him keep it. If he wants more, he will 
certainly find it himself. 

But shall we stop here with our curriculum ? Shall we omit 
a systematic study of the elements of natural science, by the 
rational method of things before words ^ Shall we forget that 
the pupils have hands as well as eyes and ears ? Shall we ex- 
clude all tools, because the pen has been declared the mightiest 
of weapons? In this forceful age, when we do few things 
directly, and most things by instruments, by tools, by mechan- 
ism, by directing the willing forces of nature until one ^'skillful 
hand and cultured brain " can outdo a thousand Grecian or 
Egyptian slaves, — shall we refuse that maxual training 
which should be one of the inalienable rights of an American 
youth ? 

But to be more specific. There are many who agree with me 
in regard to the necessity of manual training, particularly for 
city boys, who nevertheless see no way for securing it at school. 
They take it for granted that school is the place for intellectual 
and moral training through the medium of books alone, and 
that hand training lies outside the proper functions of the school. 

In his essay ^ on English in schools, among much most 

1 Published as an introduction to A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Mer- 
chant of Venice. 



Chap, XIIL] views of dr. HUDSON. 305 

excellent matter, Dr. H. N. Hudson, the Shakspearean critic, 
says : — 

" But I suspect our American parents have become somewhat absurdly, 
and not very innocently, ambitious of having their boys and girls all edu- 
cated to be good for nothing ; too proud or too lazy to live by hand work, 
while they are nowise qualified to live by head work, nor could get any to 
do, if they wei'e. If they would in all meekness and simplicity of heart 
endeavor to educate their children to be good for something, they would be 
infinitely more likely to overtake the aim of their sinful and wicked ambition. 

"So long as people proceed upon the notion that their children's main 
business in this world is to shine and not to work, and that the school has it 
in special charge to fit them out on all points, just so long they will continue 
to expect and to demand of the school that which the school can not give. . . . 

"It is, then, desirable that children should learn to think, but it is indispen- 
sable that they should learn to work ; and I believe it is possible for a large, 
perhaps the larger, portion of them to be so educated as to find pleasure in 
both. But the great question is, liow to rend'r the desirable thing and the 
indispensable thing mutually helpful and suppLenic.niary. For surely the two 
parts of education, — the education of the mind, and the education of the 
hand, — tho quite distinct in idea, and separate in act, ai-e not, or need not 
be, at all antagonistic." 

Dr. Hudson thought that the school should give the " head " 
training, while the home should give the " hand " training ; 
hence his phrase, "separate in act." In point of fact, mental 
and manual training are closely allied, and should generally be 
cofnbined in act. All manual training is more or less intel- 
lectual. To be sure, there is very little mental exercise in 
penmanship, or " fingering " at a piano, as there is in the muscle- 
culture of the gymnasium ; but tool-work is of a much higher 
grade, and is more nearly analagous to English composition 
and to instrumental music. 

Rev. Edward E. Hale has pleaded eloquently for more prac- 
tical training, which he also assumes is to be given at home or 
during vacation ; and for the purpose of securing better oppor- 
tunities for such training, he advocates either half-time schools 
or longer vacations.^ 

Mr. Hale's position is so extreme that it almost answers 
itself. I am as familiar with the fortunate circumstances of a 

1 See " Half-Time Scbools," North American Review, November, 1883. 



306 THE PROVINCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. [Ohap. Xm. 

farmer's boy as Mr. Hale. I have tried the school winters, and 
the farm summers. I know the value of a country training, 
where a fond father is never tired of giving sound instruction, 
and encouraging high aspirations. But the evils of which Mr. 
Hale complains are chiefly found in city schools ; they have 
small foothold in the country. Not one per cent of the fathers 
in a great city can command the facilities for teaching what he 
says every boy ought to learn at home during vacation. Just 
hear him ! 

" He must know what a bushel of wheat was when he saw 
it, and how a blacksmith shod a horse. He must learn the 
methods of a town meeting. He must know how to milk, how 
to plow, how to cradle oats, how to drive, how to harness a 
horse, how to take off a wheel, and how to grease an axle." 

It is excellent to be highly accomplished, of course, but could 
he not with equal propriety have said this ? — 

" He must know a salmon when he sees it, and how the sailor 
splices a rope. He must learn the discipline of a ship. He 
must learn how to dress a fish, how to set, reef, and furl a sail, 
how to row and scull a boat, how to swim, and how to stop a 
leak." 

The city boy is more likely to learn these than those ; yet, if 
he spends his vacation at home, three-fourths of it is worse than 
wasted. No time is so fruitless of good, so fruitful of evil, as 
the long vacation. The father generally works under such con- 
ditions that he can neither employ nor entertain his son during 
the day. The restraints of home are soon outgrown, and the 
boy is on the street, guided by " that good master himself," 
learning the ways of the world under the worst possible aus- 
pices.^ 

The answer to the question. What more shall the school 
undertake to do ? should depend upon what, in the interest of 

1 "The majority of our people. now reside in cities or large towns The boy 
when out of school, can no longer resort to the carpenter's bench in the barn; for 
there is no barn, not even a wood-shed, only a coal-cellar. He may, at times, be 
found'in a vacant, unfilled lot, having a very poor time playing a very poor game 
of ball; now and then he may make a laborious expedition to some park or 
skating-pond for amusement; but during the most of the time he has no resort 
outside the house except the sidewalk." — Prest. F. A". Walkkr. 



Chap, xm.] E. E. HALE AND SECRET ABY DICKINSON. 307 

■economy, individual progress, and public policy, the school is 
able to do, 

Mr. Hale assumes that it is for intellectual discipline alone, 
and that this is to be gained by reading, writing, and arithmetic. 
All else, whether music, literature, sewing, drawing, or object 
lessons, are out of place. When there are so many things as 
intellectual as penmansliip, and as practical as banking and 
equation of payments, which every boy and girl should know, 
is there any good reason for limiting school education to the 
three R's ? Is it any reason that it was so once ? When Daniel 
Webster ^ was a boy, there was not a railroad, nor a telephone, 
not even a telegraph nor a steamboat, in the land. Our present 
methods of supplying cities with food, with fuel, with shelter, 
with clothing, were unknown. There was not an armored ship, 
nor a breach-loading gun, nor a dynamo in the world; there 
was no theory of evolution, no modern science as we now 
understand the term, and one-half of the present occupations 
of men did not exist. Are our schools to be conducted in bliss- 
ful ignorance of all this ? Can the ordinary parent teach his 
boys how to cradle oats, to make a working drawing, to braze 
two pieces of iron, to make and temper a chisel, to frame a 
joint, or to make an electric battery, more readily than he can 
teach him how to read? 

Secretary Dickinson of the Massachusetts Board of Educa- 
tion has taken the ground that the chief function of a public 
school is to prevent illiteracy by teaching reading. After 
reading, writing and arithmetic should have place ; but in no 
direct way is it the aim of a public school to fit a boy to earn his 
living. 

From a recent utterance of Prest. Francis A. Walker, partly 
in reply to Secretary Dickinson, I quote a word as to the proper 
function of public schools and the value of tool-instructions : — 

" It is at this point that we part company with Dr. Dickinson. He would 
trust to the continued use of drawing, and to the increased use of science- 
teaching, to train the senses, to cultivate the habit of observation, to 
strengthen the judgment, and to make the hand and eye more ready and 

1 Mr. Hale's readers scarcely need be told that Daniel "Webster is one of his 
heroes. 



308 THE PROVINCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. [chap. Xm. 

faithful servants of the mind. The use of tools he deprecates as injurious 
to the proper purposes, and as disparaging to the dignity of the public 
schools ; while he admits sewing and cooking only as burdens which the 
schools may be asked to carry for the general good. Most of us, on the con- 
trary, believe that the use of tools in appi-opriate form and degree, and the 
teaching of cooking and sewing, are as truly educational as any, even the most 
approved, of the familiar features of the public school ; that they supply 
desirable elements which can be obtained at all, or which can be obtained 
as well, FROM NO OTHER SOURCE ; and that they are not only compatible 
with the integrity and dignity of the school system, but that they promise 
greatly to increase the general interest in the schools, if not to become the 
very salvation of the school system itself; while the incidental advantages 
resulting therefrom : — 

In raising the industrial quality of our people ; 

In creating respect for labor ; 

In quickening the sense of social decency ; 

In secuiing a greater economy of the means and the resources of the very 
poor : and 

In promoting good citizenship generally -^ 
are, as we esteem them, beyond all price." 

Dr. Dickinson appears to me to think that the onl}^ outcome 
of tool-instrviction is mere manual dexterity, which he tliinks has 
no value as a means for promoting "the general development 
of active power." As to the need of a larger development of 
active power than now obtains, " of turning the learner's mind 
from words to things," he appears to be convinced. He says 
truly that " it should not be foJ'.goXten that the conditions of 
knowledge require the presence to the mind of the objects and 
subjects to be known, and that the cultivation of active power 
requires a vigorous exercise of the faculties upon appropriate 
objects of thought." He admits that " the pupil may become 
an original investigator by being trained to handle the objects 
of his investigation. This training leads to self-control, and 
prepares one to take up the work of life with every prospect of 
success." (^Educational June, 1887.) 

That is good sense, tho it seems a little ambitious. Still, 
wdll the training be without value if the objects investigated 
include woods, metals, tools, and fabrics? And suppose he 
does more than " handle " them ? Handling' things is a great 
deal better than nothing ; but to me, the word suggests a very 



Chap. XIII.] T[IE ERROR OF DR. DICKINSON. 309 

superficial treatment. In addition to handling a piece of wood 
or a piece of plaster, an instrument or a tool, suppose he probes 
it, and tests it, and finds out the secrets of its construction, and 
some of its manifold uses, is it not far better than any mere 
^^ handling" can be? And is it fruitless if such investigation 
be not original ? It is a high ambition to be original, to invent ; 
but very little of a pupil's work can be original. He follows 
beaten paths in more than one study. But the work he does is 
original to him, in so far as he is conscious of doing things, of 
solving things himself ; and original work of that sort, in any 
field, is stimulating and nutritious to the mind. 

I am bound to believe that Dr. Dickinson has been misled as 
to the motive of shop-work in schools of secondary grade, he is 
so afraid of trade or professional teaching, — a thing which I 
suspect very few thoughtful people advocate in any public 
school, or school for general train hig. And, again, I see plainly 
that he completely fails to appreciate the fact that the fruit of 
judicious tool-instruction is mental dexterity rather than manual 
dexterity. 

I find myself in entire sympathy with the secretary's final 
statement of the end and aim of public instruction ; we differ 
only in the means to be employed. He says : — 

" If we desire to construct such a system of public instruction for the 
youth of the country as will best" prepare them to discharge, with efficiency 
and fidelity, the duties of private and public life, let us make ample provision 
for the complete training of the powers of observation, for an accurate 
knowledge of facts, of analysis and comparison, for a knowledge of the 
relations of things, of generalization and reasoning, for a knowledge of those 
general truths from which the rules of conduct should be derived, and, above 
these things, for that training which leads to an all-controlling love of truth ; 
and the youth will take their places in life, elevated above the narrowing 
effect of any trade, occupation, or profession, and ready to enter upon any 
sei'vice to which they may be cailed." 

Amen, and amen ! and by their fruits ye shall know them. 
I am no stranger to Dr. Dickinson's method, either as a pupil or 
as a teacher ; but I greatly fear that he is a comparative stranger 
to mine. If he would take one half the Boston boys who this 
year complete the grammar school course, — and there ought to 



310 THE PROVINCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. [Ohap. Xm. 

be about two thousand of them, — and train one half of them 
his way, and one half of them my way, for three years, and then 
graduate them, and watch their careers for ten years more, I am 
sure that he would agree with me, that there is not a single ele- 
ment of narrowness, or unmanliness, or un worthiness in manual 
training. 

Prof. Ripper of Sheffield, Eng., whom I have already referred 
to in an early chapter, says : — 

" There is at present absolutely no sort of connection between the school- 
room and the workshop ; between the present training and future employ- 
ment of boys. Work, workshops, tools, materials, or workshop problems 
are never mentioned in the school ; they have no place there ; all reference 
to these things is excluded as a sort of necessary evil which it will be time 
enough for the children to deal with when they arc obliged. But the present 
grinding, aimless system of mere book-learning and cram is not destined to 
live much longer in its present form." 

The ambition of American parents, of which Dr. Hudson com- 
plains, is not then an American invention ; we have it by honest 
inheritance. When school education was the prerogative of the 
rich and " high-born," nothing could be more reasonable than 
that their schools should aim to produce gentlemen of leisure, 
with polished manners and "■ polite " learning. The strange 
thing is, that, when we adopted the principle of universal edu- 
cation, we clung so tenaciously to the old curriculum, and 
blindly hugged the delusion that we were all noble, all destined 
to lives of elegant ease among cultivated people. 

Such being the fact, what is the inevitable consequence? 
Why, to most people the education we provide in our secondary 
schools seems like giving stones to hungry children who are 
crying for bread. The great mass of the people think, that, be- 
yond the rudiments, school education is not worth the getting. 
The average child takes less than half the course. The extent 
of one's school education is generally determined by social con- 
siderations. The higher grades become therefore more " select " 
in the genteel sense, and both the patrons and managers of such 
grades are interested in maintaining their genteel character. 

The class of schools which the city of St. Louis ought, above 
all others, to maintain in the interest of economy, of self-defence, 



Chap. XIIL] genteel CnARACTER OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 311 

of benevolence, and of public decency, is not maintained at all. 
I mean schools for the ragged, neglected, little outcasts, who 
wander homeless about our streets, and form the recruiting 
ground for hoodlums, thieves, and criminals ; who fill our jails 
and work-houses ; and who cost us per year as much as we now 
pay for our system of public schools. It is a shame that public 
education shoots above the heads of all such ! 

I do not wish to ignore the fact that much has been done 
in the direction of adopting a program more consonant with 
our platform of universal education. The demands of the age 
were, a few years since, recognized by a wide-spread attempt to 
introduce both natural science and " industrial " drawing. 

The science study is in a very hopeful state, tho it has 
suffered greatly from incompetent teachers, whose knowledge 
of science consisted of a few feeble ideas gathered from books, 
and from a complete lack of that manual skill which is abso- 
lutely essential to the successful study of science by the method 
of " things and processes.'^ Moreover, it has materially helped 
to make clear the demand for skill of manipulation as the con- 
dition for science study. Drawing has in many places made 
splendid progress, but it has failed as a general thing to take 
on a universal character. It has on the one hand been special- 
ized into what was largely imitative drawing, given in the 
evening to those who were at work during the day ; and, on 
the other hand, it has been crowded over into the atmosphere 
of artistic drawing as more consonant with the general air of 
gentility in the other work of the school. 

I have often elsewhere spoken of the comparative inutility of 
drawing, when not supplemented by laboratory work on wood, 
plaster, clay, or other suitable material. No teacher, who, under 
favorable conditions, has added executive, constructive work to 
drawing, can be for a moment in doubt of its beneficial effect 
upon the drawing. The following very thoughtful remarks of 
Supt. Edwin P. Seaver of Boston show the result of his careful 
observations. 

" As now pursued, drawing has but a vague and remote reference to any 
use beyond itself. When this branch was introduced into our schools, and 
made obligatory by statute, the plea was, that drawing was an important 



312 THE PROVINCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. [Chap. Xni. 

part of industrial education, and industrial education was much needed by 
the people, especially the people in the cities. This is all true, and very 
well as far as it goes. But abundant experience may be cited to show that 
industrial education through drawing alone is work only half done, and that 
it has for that reason usually failed. The other half — modeling, carving, 
joining, turning, forging, casting, weaving, or any other process by which 
material is shaped in accordance with a preconceived design represented by 
drawings — has hitherto been wanting in our schools. Unless this element 
of construction is added, our drawing will still fail, as it has hitherto failed, 
to yield the full measure of good results expected of it. Delineation and 
construction — designing and the working out of the design — are two 
parts of one whole; neither can have full educational value without the 
other. The former, pursued alone, is open to all the objections that may 
properly be urged against any abstract studies imposed on children ; while 
the latter, pursued alone, fails to give the worker that broad, intelligent 
grasp of the plan of his work, which is a necessary element in all true skill." 

I cheerfully grant that much good has been accomplished by 
these movements, though I regret the use of the word "indus- 
trial " in connection with drawing. Drawing is scarcely more 
industrial than arithmetic, or chemistry, or physics, or penman- 
ship. Nevertheless, " industrial " drawing has helped to pre- 
pare the way for the broader and more comprehensive system 
of manual training which it has been my privilege to help 
introduce. This is not brought forward as an exclusively 
industrial feature, and I decline to call a manual training 
school an industrial school. In it we have endeavored to bring;' 
together the education of the hand, and the education of the 
mind, in such a wa}^ that each is the gainer thereby. And we 
have found it possible to bring together into one the two edu- 
cations which some have thought it necessary to separate. In 
other words, we have extended our scheme of education so as 
to include those manual elements which are of universal utility 
in the education of youth. 

And we have discovered, — and here is the principal point in 
the discussion, — we have found that these manual elements can, 
at the time they are most needed, be as successfully and economic- 
ally taught in the schoolroom, by ordinary class methods, as 
reading or arithmetic are taught, and vastly more thoroughly 
and cheaply than the manual elements can be taught anywhere 
else. The burden of complaint has been that they have not 



Chap. Xm.] HOME MANUAL TRAINING A FAILURE. 313 

been taught at all anywhere. There can be no comparison 
between two systems, one of which succeeds, while the other 
fails. 

But it maj" be urged, that, in well-to-do families, children are 
sometimes given manual instruction at home, and that the sons 
have received a species of manual training as apprentices in a 
commercial establishment. It is thought that these methods are 
better than the method I recommend. Let me examine them. 

Against the results of the family method, nothing can be said 
if it is well carried out. It mat/ he thorough, generous, and 
wholesome in every way. It may possibly lack the spur and 
stimulus of a score of other minds, what Dr. Harris so admirably 
calls the " leverage of the class." But it is exceedingly expen- 
sive. None but the rich can give what we place within the 
reach of all. The cost of a private tutor always exceeds tuition 
fees and school taxes ; much more would home manual training 
exceed its cost in a good school. But the supposition that 
home manual training is well done is quite unusual. Suppose, 
rather, that a father does his best, and teaches his son the petty 
details of his own craft or occupation. On the average, how 
wretchedly narrow that training must be I In the average 
family, the parents are incompetent to teach much that it is 
highly desirable that the children should learn even of their 
own occupations. 

" The specialization of manufactures has been carried so far, that, in 
some departments, an operative often need not be a mechanic in any sense 
of that term ; using only a single tool, and performing only a single simple 
operation from one year's end to another. Even the mechanic arts have been 
differentiated, until individual skill has largely gone out of them. The 
carpenter of the old days made sash, doors, and blinds ; he planed, matched, 
and grooved his boards ; he built his stairways ; he did a hundred things 
requiring dexterity and fine workmanship. 

" To-day few of them are capable of giving their children that instruction 
in rnechanic arts which every father in the olden time gave his boys as a 
matter of course. Such, and so extensive, have been the changes in the 
social conditions of our people." — Prest. Francis A. Walker. 

Go into the first public school you see, and learn the occupa- 
tions, or crafts, or callings of all the fathers of the boys therein. 



814 THE PROVINCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. [Chap. XIIL 

You will find that one half of them have no well-defined craft 
or professional training. You will find under the head of 
"clerks" and "laborers" two thirds of the whole number, if 
correctly reported. Now I say, suppose these men do teach 
their sons just what they themselves know, what a sorry prep- 
aration they have for an intelligent choice of occupation ! It 
is clear that they have no choice at all. It is merely the 
European idea of an inherited occupation, and must ever result 
in the establishment of the worst kind of caste distinctions. 

The experience of Europe has abundantly shown that home 
training for life not only perpetuates caste, but degrades the 
industries of a people. They have found that even when a 
father has a trade, and wishes to teach it to his son, he can not 
teach it as intelligently and thoroughly as it can be taught in a 
trade school. 

Hence a school is better than home training in handiwork, 
I will now show that a manual training school is better than 
any system of apprenticeship, and hence better than any trade 
school, for the purpose of general training. 

To the commercial method, of more or less formal apprentice- 
ship, several very serious objections arise. First and foremost, 
the apprentice stops going to school. His mathematical, scien- 
tific, and literary training stops the moment he enters upon his 
effort to secure manual training. This fact alone ought to kill 
the old style of apprenticeship. It has degraded all mechanical 
pursuits, — not simply brought them into bad repute, but has 
actually degraded them, — and has given rise to the notion that 
a mechanic needs no education beyond the rudiments of the 
grammar school, aside from what he picks up at his trade. 

Then, again, in apprenticeship at any kind of tool-work, the 
boy is not taught drawing as a part of his trade ; and yet tool- 
work, however skillful, without drawing is the thinnest sort of 
apology for manual training. Not one journeyman mechanic in 
a hundred is as good a draughtsman, or as intelligent in read- 
ing drawings, as the graduate of a manual training school. 

Thirdly, the ordinary apprentice gets at best a very narrow 
kind of manual training. He is made familiar with a very 
limited range of work, and he is kept at that far beyond the 



Chap. XIIlJ INFERIOEITY OF COMMERCIAL METHOD. 315 

needs of intelligent mastery, till the mechanical habits of a 
rapid workman are fully formed. Henceforth his handiwork is 
the result of habit, not of thought, and his intellectual progress 
as connected with his work is at an end. 

Can the value of such a training be compared with that given 
in a school where the intellect is ever on the alert, and where 
we introduce the widest possible range of tools, materials, and 
processes ? 

But it may be urged in reply to all this, that the apprentice 
is all the while earning some money ; and, again, he is saving 
much time by getting into good paying employment. 

There is truth in the first objections. The apprentice usually 
does get, I am sorry to say, some pay even for the first year. 
It may be only fifty dollars, but it is something ; and it works 
badly in two ways. On the one side, it reconciles the parent, 
who may be very poor, or lazy, or indifferent to the boy's high- 
est welfare, to a very poor and unprofitable arrangement, and 
it may gratify the boy's dangerous appetite for spending money ; 
on the other side, it appears to justify the employer in keeping 
the lad at unprogressive work, on the plea that he should earn 
his wages. 

As to the saving of time in reaching good wages, it is very 
doubtful if such is the case. It is the bird in the hand in pref- 
erence to several in the bush. Take the boys who have been 
out of the St. Louis Manual Training School a year and a half, 
and who consequently entered school four years and a half ago : 
how does the average of their wages compare with those of 
average journeymen mechanics who began their apprenticeship 
four years and a half ago ? And how will it be five or ten years 
hence ? (See p. 156 as to the wages actually received by manual 
graduates, and Mr. Foley's testimony, p. 198.) 

But there is a fourth argument against the commercial way 
of getting manual training, which to some may outweigh all 
the rest, serious as they appear to be ; and that is this : To put 
a boy fourteen or fifteen years old to learn a trade as an appren- 
tice, is, as a rule, to commit him to that trade for life, without 
intelligent choice of occupation, and with little chance for cor- 
recting a mistake if one is made. It is a crime against freedom 



816 TBE PROVINCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. [ohap. XIIL 

and humanity. Few people, not forced by cruel necessity, are 
willing to take such serious risks, for such questionable gain. 

There are plenty of people whose mental make-up is such, 
that, while they may succeed fairly in other paths of labor, they 
are unfit to be mechanics. They have not the ability, the 
proper mental qualities. To set such people to learn trades, is 
most unfortunate. They are sure to be low-grade, indifferent 
workmen, always struggling against a fate which a better 
knowledge of their capacities would have avoided. The fact is 
that, until one has had an opportunity to develop his faculties, 
neither he nor his teachers can tell what his " bent " is, nor 
what there is in him. 

The student of a manual training school takes all his work 
without bias. There is no presumption either for or against a 
particular line of work in life. He is as free as it is possible to 
be. He probably changes his mind every year on the subject 
of what occupation he is best fitted for. At the end of his 
school course, however, he is likely to see clearly where he is 
weak, and Avhere he is strong, and to make his choice in the 
direction of his strength. 

To sum up the objections against the commercial method of 
getting manual training as compared with the school method: — 

1. The apprentice gives up all further mathematical, scientific, 
and literary training. 

2. He fails to learn practical draughting. 

3. He gets a very narrow training, limited to the details of a 
single trade, often less than a single trade. 

4. He hazards all on a single choice of occupation, without 
trustworthy knowledge of his abilities or his tastes. 

The conclusions I reach may be thus concisely stated. 

1. Every child should have systematic mental training and 
manual training. 

2. These two kinds of training should be given side by side, 
and simultaneously in school. 

3. The manual training thus given is far more thorough, far 
more valuable, and far better supplemented by other culture, 
and is gained far more cheaply than that gained in any other 
way. 



Chap. XIIL] manual TRAINING BREAKS DOWN CASTE. 317 

I am not unacquainted with the various objections urged 
against the introduction of manual training in public education. 
Some claim that it would introduce the idea of caste. Such 
people do not realize the extent to which caste already exists 
in connection with education. The very objection suggests 
that in the mind of the objector manual training is socially low- 
grade, as compared with ordinary academic training. In point 
of fact I doubt if such is the case to any great extent ; and to 
the extent that it may be true, it is the result of a false estimate 
of what manual training is. I doubt if in any well-organized 
manual training school, or in the community around it, there 
has been any increase of the caste feeling in consequence of the 
school. On the contrary^ I believe the effect is just the other 
way. If there were any force in the objection, it would be seen 
more clearly, in England than here. This is what an English 
teacher of experience says : — 

"It has been charged against those who advocate manual training, that 
they belong to that class which would deny the workingman's child a liberal 
education ; and that, by introducing it, we would perpetuate caste and hate- 
ful class distinctions. Nothing could be farther from the actual facts. We 
say, let the education of every child in the United Kingdom be as thorough 
and as liberal as you can make it, and after that add to it manual training 
as a practical and useful finish. 

" As to its perpetuating caste, we contend that the higher the grade of 
the school, the more thorough should be the manual training; and we 
believe there are few things which would njore effectually break down fash- 
ionable contempt of manual labor." 

Some persons appear to object to manual training as a feature 
of general education on educational grounds ; and yet, if j^ou 
examine their position carefully, you will find that the objec- 
tion is more social than anything else. What is it, for instance, 
but an inconsistent and ungenerous fling at manual training, 
to discredit, on the one hand, the claims of systematic tool- 
instruction as one of the features of general education ; and 
then, on the other, to assert that " in schools for Indian youth, 
freedmen, the blind, the deaf, orphans, paupers, truants, etc., 
it is wise and important to combine general and industrial train- 
ing " ? I am quoting the exact language of Supt. E. E. White 
of Cincinnati. 



318 THE PROVINCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. [Chap. XIIL 

You see Mr. White classifies people, and says it is wise to 
give manual training to some, but not to others ; and the basis 
of his classification is not intellectual nor moral — it is social. 
Take the fifteen hundred orphans at Girard College in Phila- 
delphia ; they are between the ages of six and sixteen. Mr. 
White says it is wise to mix manual training with their mental 
training. So say I. What would Secretary Dickinson say? 
Now, why do Mr. White and I say, combine manual with their 
mental training? Evidently, because we believe that such a 
combination is most likely to accomplish the high ends so well 
expressed by Dr. Dickinson. Now if it be true, as Mr. White 
and I believe, that the high aims of education are best secured 
to those fifteen hundred orphans by such a combination, why 
will not those ends be equally well secured to fifteen hundred 
other Philadelphia boys who are not orphans ? 

Here Mr. White and I part company. He says, the moment 
you step into a school where the boj^s are not orphans, or tru- 
ants, or paupers, or negroes, or Indians, it is no longer wise and 
important to combine mental and manual training ; the mental 
is better alone. I say no — a thousand times, no. Let us give 
the best we have to all, whether it be the old or the new. 
Away with all such social distinctions. In his language, if not 
in his thought, Mr. White reflects upon the character and 
social standing of manual training. He would have it appear 
that it is not good enough for respectable boys ; and when he 
sandwiches the unfortunate between truants and paupers on 
the one hand, and freedmen and Indian youth on the other, I 
can not avoid the conclusion that he thinks that it is not respect- 
able to be an orphan, to be blind, or deaf. 

I protest against the tendency of Mr. White's position. 

And when Mr. Dickinson declares against the method of 
manual training, which I have found so fruitful in good results, 
educational and economical, I can not avoid asking. What sort 
of boys is he thinking of? Is he thinking as fully and impar- 
tially of those who are to carry on and direct and develop the 
thousand and one mechanical occupations of the next tAventy- 
five years, as he is of those who are to devote themselves to 
literature and art and science and to professional life ? The 



Chap. Xm.] THE MANUAL NOT A SPECIAL SCHOOL. 319 

manual training school thinks as much of the one set as of the 
other. The children of the people for whom public education 
is provided, in whose service you and I are engaged, do not all 
wear kid gloves nor eat with silver spoons. Let us so train 
them all, that they will be strong and self-reliant, independent 
and free. Let their education be first broad and generous, 
before it becomes special. Let us make it thoroughly human 
by developing all their God-given human faculties and sympa- 
thies symmetrically ; in short, let us put the whole boy to 
school. 

Others claim that a manual training school is a "special" 
school. If it is special to omit Greek from its curriculum, 
and to give but one-third of the book study to language and 
literature ; if it is special to give but a moderate attention 
to commercial arithmetic and book-keeping ; to give more than 
the usual attention to elementary science, and at the same time 
an equally moderate attention to practical drawing and the 
principles and processes which underlie half the occupations 
of our people, — then the manual training school is a special 
school. But certainly it is no more special than, for instance, 
any one of the high schools of Boston. That city has a 
" normal school " for girls, with special reference to teaching ; 
a " Latin High " for boys, with special reference to being law- 
yers, physicians, or clergymen ; and an " English High " for 
boys intending to enter mercantile life. Such schools may be 
right and proper, and be demanded by the needs of a great city. 
For them she does not and ought not to shrink from spending 
large sums of public money. 

But what equally generous provision does she make for those 
other Boston boys, who out-number these several times over, and 
who need, and are capable of receiving, some preparation for 
the business of their lives ? None. These boys must either go 
to their work with no training beyond that of the grammar 
schools, or they must content themselves with the preliminary 
training of a lawyer or a merchant. 

But I do not admit that a manual training school is a special 
school. It is the " Latin " school and the " English High " that 
are special. Take a list of the Boston boys between fourteen 



S20 THE PROVINCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. [Ohap. XIIL 

and eighteen years of age, and see how many of them need 
Greek, and how many need manual training. Then take the 
graduates of a high school and of a manual training school 
which have stood side by side long enough to afford a basis of 
comparison, and see which set of graduates has scattered most 
widely into occupations requiring cultivated brains. 

No, I am clearly of the opinion that the high school people 
have no right to call the manual a " special " school. It is not 
special to train the whole boy, except as a historical fact. 

Mr. Thomas Davidson in the Forum for April, 1887, comes 
to the conclusion that my position is altogether correct. He 
says : — 

" It appears to me, that, for a very large portion of our people, manual 
training is one of the very first of educational necessaries. I am strongly 
in favor of public high schools and colleges ; but I maintain, that, if any 
community can not support both high schools and manual training schools, 
it is bound to give precedence to the latter. Nay, more, if any community 
now supports high schools, but has no manual training schools, it is bound 
to exchange the former for the latter, or else maintain both. 

" I am, therefore, thoroughly convinced that our public education would, 
in every way, be a gainer if our high schools and colleges were turned into 
manual training schools after the model of those in Chicago and St. Louis." 

1 have said that we do not teach trades ; but some people 
declare that we do teach them, or tr^/ to do so. Such people do 
not know what is involved in learning a trade. They do not 
realize that in learning a trade one must learn the business ; he 
must learn the money value of time and of materials. He must 
learn to draw the line between economy of material and econ- 
omy of labor in the design and construction of articles. He must 
learn to compare various methods of effecting the same result, 
and be able to select the one which in a given case is best. He 
must be prepared for competition. These things, for the most 
part, can not be learned at school ; and, tho such matters might 
have a certain value for all persons, it would be manifestly 
unwise to try to put them into a school. 

As regards what we can not and do not try to teach, I will 
quote a word from that very keen observer and successful man 
of business, William Mather, Esq., manufacturer, Manchester, 



Chap. XIIL] what A SCHOOL CAN NOT TEACH. 321 

Eng., late Royal Commissioner of Education to America, 
recently member of Parliament from Salford : — 

" There is no possibility of teaching in a school that sort of knowledge 
which practical work, carried out ou commercial principles, within restric- 
tions as to time of execution, etc., can alone make any one familiar with." 
— Technical Education in Russia (p. 12). 

THE POLICY OP THE SHOP. 

I have been criticised because I have refused to entertain the 
idea of making articles to sell, even when it would appear that 
I could do so as well as not. Let us look at the matter a 
moment, and see if I am not right. 

Suppose correct translations of Caesar or Voltaire could be 
sold at so much a line, without regard to the translator ; nay, 
•suppose that the best translations sold for the most money, and 
that poor work was a drug in the market. Now, if we add the 
further suppositions, that translations of old passages sell as 
well as of new ones, and that all the money received goes into 
the school treasury, you have the parallel conditions under 
which each and every pupil is to be well and broadly trained in 
Latin and French. 

Under such conditions (assuming money to be an object, and 
that is what my critics assume), would not the teacher be likely 
to touch up a great many translations himself? Would he not 
probably translate all the hard passages himself? Would he 
not be apt to give the more difficult parts to the ablest boys ? 
And would he not be sorely tempted to keep his class on a few 
popular selections as soon as they had shown that they could 
translate them acceptably ? Think you the moral effect on the 
school would be good ? Under such conditions I think a good 
school would be a moral impossibility. 

Now there are plenty of good workmen whose only standard 
of success is the income of the shop, whose only criterion of 
excellence is salability. The finished work is the grand desid- 
eratum., no matter how nor by whom made. — Beware of such 
men. Do not make them teachers of your sons, or give them 
the control of your school. 

Let me make an extract on this point of policy, from a paper 



322 THE PROVINCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. [Chap. Xm. 

it was my privilege to present to the American Society of 
Mechanical Engineers at its Chicago meeting in May, 1886, 
upon " The Training of a Dynamic Engineer." The paper was 
in part a reply to one by Prof. Alden of the Worcester Free 
Institute. I said : — 

" Prof. Alden believes in a commercial shop where real busi- 
ness is done, and where commercial standards are used. He 
admits that ' such a plan would not have been developed as the 
outgrowth of a school,' and says it was made a necessary con- 
dition of the acceptance of the donation for the establishment 
of the Worcester shop. Nevertheless, he appears to regard it as 
the best means for securing the end sought ; viz., the education 
and training of the students in practical mechanics. According 
to Prof. Alden, the question is, ' whether the shop shall, first, be 
a place where business is done, in order that there may be some-* 
thing practical for the students to learn ; or whether it shall be 
a place fitted with tools, where only their use and the processes 
of shop practice are taught.' He decides for the former, I have 
decided for the latter. 

" The first thing to do in the shops of a school is to teach the 
use of tools, and the processes of the arts ; the question of 
what shall be done with the incidental products is a secondare/ 
matter. Our exercises are so designed that their execution 
shall be as instructive as possible, and not at all with a view to 
sale. We can not afford to fill orders ; the moment a boy is fit 
to fill an order involving only old exercises, he must turn his 
attention to new ones. We aim to put but one article upon 
the market; viz., bor/s. 

" Not that we hold, as Prof. Alden appears to think, that the 
sale of an article produced as an exercise ' would in some way 
render the practice unfit to be associated with a school.' We 
make no attempt to sell their drawings, their surveys, their Eng- 
lish essays, their physical apparatus, or their chemical analyses : 
so we do not aim to sell their shop-work. I think the policy 
of deliberately manufacturing for the market is unwise or 
mischievous in three ways : — 

"1. The orders which, the superintendent can get, and the 
sequence in which he gets them, are greatly inferior, in the 



Chap. Xin.] THE POLICY OF THE SHOP. 323 

opportunities they offer for logical treatment and fullness of 
instruction, to the orders which he is capable of designing. 

" 2. The pecuniary risk involved in the execution of a delicate 
operation on a large or complicated article is liable to lead the 
skilled instructor to do with his own hands in every case what 
each student should have a chance to practice upon for himself. 

" 3. In spite of all efforts to the contrary, the filling of actual 
orders is sure to involve not only a dearth of the most instruc- 
tive processes, but an excess of the simpler steps, continued 
practice in which ceases to be of any subjective value, and 
which, therefore, results in a waste of time and loss of interest.^ 

" All of my shop-teachers were trained in business shops, one 
of them at the Worcester Institute ; and yet after several years 
of experience, in which they have combined exercises of their 
own design, with the execution of projects more or less com- 
plicated and quite analogous to outside orders, they are more 
and more in favor of their own exercises for the purpose of 
instruction. 

" As regards the interest which students take in their work, 
we have found no lack of it in judicious exercises. At the 
same time, we have no objection to putting to actual use such of 
our exercises as will admit of it. During the past year, every 
student of the graduating class of the Manual Training School 
has been required to make, as a lathe exercise, three small and 
three large bolts with their nuts. Now the first bolt finished 
was likely to be poor; the last in each set was likely to be 
good. Such being the case, we had no wish for the class to 
make more. Our object was secured. We could not stop to 
make more, even to fill an order. With a full knowledge of all 
the facts, a St. Louis firm, of whom we bought iron and steel, 
offered to let us have all the material we needed for this exer- 
cise if we would let them have the finished bolts when we were 
through with them. This offer we accepted. 

1 Prof. S. W. Robinson of Columbus, O., added a fourth objection to a com- 
Tiiercial policy as the result of his own experience; viz., a practical sacrifice of 
all instruction to the demands of the shop whenever it was necessary to fill orders 
on time. 



324 THE PROVINCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. [Chap. Xm. 



THE STUDY OF MONEY VALUES. 

"Secondly, I wish to consider an argument offered by the 
superintendent of the ' Miller Manual Labor School ' in Vir- 
ginia. He says in his catalog of 1885: 'We consider it part 
of the instruction of the shop to teach boys the value of labor, 
the increased value of skilled labor, and the still greater value 
of an educated mind guiding a trained hand.' And, again : 
' We feel sure that no course of shop instruction will be com- 
plete that does not take cognizance of the value of material and 
the value of labor.' It is probable that by ' value ' is meant 
onl}" money value. 

" This sounds well, and the objects aimed at are worthy ; but 
I doubt their success in this direction. A learner can get no 
correct idea of the money value of his time or of the education 
he is getting. His time is well spent in learning, even if he 
spends six hours in doing what an expert would do in less than 
one. Take mechanical drawing, for instance. A boy at school 
makes but one good drawing of a kind. He knows how long 
it took him to do it, but he does not know how long it would 
take him to duplicate it ; much less does he know what an 
experienced draughtsman can do. Speed comes with long prac- 
tice, which a school ought not to try to give. It is the same 
with shop-work. 

"As to his making a just comparison between skilled and 
unskilled labor, and between an ignorant and an educated work- 
man, it is clearly out of the question. Only long experience in 
employing and directing workmen of all grades of intelligence 
and skill gives opportunity for reliable judgment on these 
points. Of course, our boys/eeZ the difference between know- 
ing and not knowing, between thoughtfulness and thoughtless- 
ness ; but the money value of that difference is beyond their 
horizon. So in their study of political economy they get ideas 
about wages, and the value of skill, both mental and manual ; 
but such ideas can not be called knowledge until confirmed by 
personal experience in the real work of life. 

" Neither do I think much is to be gained in discussing the 
cost of materials. Economy may be taught even if the material 



Chap. Xni.] THE STUDY OF VALUES. 325 

costs nothing. We can teach intrinsic values without meddling 
with market values. The former are permanent, the latter 
fluctuating. 

" It is only when the student is preparing directly for the 
responsibilities of professional life, that a systematic considera- 
tion of market values finds appropriate place. 

" Let it be said that there are many things which can not 
be taught or learned at school. A West Point cadet can not be 
drilled in the presence of flying bullets and bursting shells, 
tho exercise under such conditions is the 'real business,' the 
'something practical,' which the real soldier must some time 
learn. The law student argues before a ' moot ' court ; it is 
only the lawyer who engages in real business before a real 
court. So the medical student amputates and dissects dead 
men, leaving living people to those who, worthily or unworthily, 
hav^ received their diplomas. 

" In like manner, while a school can successfully teach and 
train students in the details of shop-work, as a matter of applied 
mechanics and practical mechanism, and as a means for the 
development of mental power, it will not wisely undertake to 
train them in the actual transaction of business. Such training 
lies outside the walls of even an engineering school ; and any 
attempt to bring it in is sure, in my opinion, to result in deep- 
seated errors, in false estimates, and in a diminished regard 
for those intrinsic values, those immutable laws, and those per- 
manent factors which are of universal application, and which 
most reward careful study." 

In conclusion, let us not fear to build our own house. Let 
us not fear to strike out for ourselves when the age demands 
something new. Progress is essential to life ; as Browning 

says : — 

" 'Tis a life-long toil till our lump be leaven. 

The better! What's come to perfection perishes." 

I see nowhere, in either ancient or modern times, a people 
whose youth have been trained as our youth should be trained. 
Neither Babylon, nor Athens, nor Rome, with their pinnacles 
of culture resting on the barbarous foundation of human 



326 THE PROVINCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. [Chap. XIII. 

slavery; nor the blooded aristocracies of more modern times, 
buttressed and supported by millions of laborers ground down 
in ignorance, poverty, and superstition, — none of these can 
teach us how to educate, construct, and adorn an American 
citizen. The world's work must be done. Let it be done intel- 
ligently and well. No narrow, selfish aim, no prejudice of 
caste, no false claim of high culture, must mislead our pupils. 

Give them a generous, symmetrical training ; open wide the 
avenues to success, to usefulness, to happiness, to power ; and 
this age of scientific progress and material wealth shall be also 
an age of high intellectual and social progress. 

Note. Portions of this chapter were read at the Chicago meeting of the 
National Educational Association, in July, 1887. 



Chap. XIV.] MANUAL TRAINING IN ENGLAND. 327 



CHAPTER XIV. 

EUROPEAN SCHOOLS. 

IT is possible that my readers may wish to know to what 
extent I am familiar with tool-instruction in other lands, 
and how far trans-Atlantic theory and practice agree with ours. 

In 1885 I spent five months on a tour of observation and 
inspection of English and European schools of higher and lower 
grades, visiting them while in full operation. 

Ther« have been a great many reports upon these matters, so 
that I shall confine myself to a brief statement of the compara- 
tive values and aims of the several kinds of schools I visited.^ 

In England very little had been done in the direction of 
manual training. 

Finsbury College in London was the only good school I saw 
following a broad and generous course. The school was 
planned by Mr. (now Sir) Philip Magnus, and in a small way 
it was very much like our manual training school. At Sheffield 
there was a similar but less developed school under Prof. 
Ripper. Other schools, like the Bradford Academy and the 
Manchester Technical School, were more nearly like trade 
schools. In these technical schools no uniform general course 
of study and practice was followed, but each student had special 
instruction in special arts with a definite view to a special occu- 
pation. For instance, one student would study bleaching and 
dyeing, another spinning, another weaving, and so on. 

Many students took no constructive drawing, and in most 
cases the evening departments were the main features. As a 

1 I can not speak too highly of the reports of the British Royal Commission on 
Technical Education. Their descriptions are remarkably full, and good judg- 
ment is shown in giving the details of all peculiar features. 



328 KUROl'EAN SCHOOLS. [Chap. rW'. 

rule, the manufacturing interests of the town determined the 
character of the technical instruction. During the year 1885, 
the Manchester Technical School was changed to the Man- 
chester Manual Training School, but with what success I have 
not learned. 

In Scotland, in the city of Glasgow, I visited a school on 
precisely the plan of a manual training school, called Allan 
Glen's Institution. To be sure, the school was small, and its 
outfit very inadequate, so that the shop practice was greatly 
restricted ; but the principles on which the school was conducted 
were most admirable. Head Master Dixon's views are well 
expressed by these few words : " There never has been the least 
idea of attempting to teach the pupils a trade. The whole 
object has been to prepare lads to learn very efficiently " such 
occupations as they might subsequently choose to adopt. 

It is hardly necessary to say that the mechanical laboratories 
of King's College and University College, and of the Central 
School of the City, and Guilds of London Institution are for the 
instruction of students of much higher grade. These are all 
high-grade polytechnic schools, for which the manual training 
school is strictly preparatory. It should be borne in mind that 
the graduate of a manual training school enters a polytechnic 
school as freshman. 

I must not omit to mention the remarkable workshops of 
Prof. Stuart in the University of Cambridge. Prof. Stuart is a 
firm believer in the good mental and moral influence of intelli- 
gent manual labor and thorough business methods. He has, 
therefore, organized in the very heart of Cambridge, and as a 
part of the laboratory system of the great University, a series 
of shops in which the students are instructed in the execution 
of commercial work in wood and iron. Almost from the start, 
the young workmen are put upon job-work which is secured 
from the city. He has a wood-working shop for the making of 
patterns ; a molding and casting room, containing a small cupola 
for melting iron ; a machine-shop for machine-work and fitting ; 
and one forge. A rigid system of accounts is kept, and prices 
are based on the time spent. Prof. Stuart started the shop 
twelve years ago, at his own expense. He gives his own time 



Chap. XI7.] A CAMBRIBGE WORKSHOP. 329 

(^beyond certain lectures he is required to give as University 
professor), but I believe that one or two shop assistants are 
paid by the University. All the other running expenses are 
met by the income of the shop, according to Prof. Stuart. 

Tho not approving the p'^olicy of Prof. Stuart's establish- 
ment, I have no doubt he is doing a good work among the 
students. The existence and evident popularity of the depart- 
ment is a most interesting phase in the development of the New 
Cambridge out of the Old. He had eighty students when I was 
there, of whom sixty were college men. I fear that were Prof. 
Stuart an obscure man, instead of a distinguished member of 
Parliament, the shops, as now managed, would be less successful. 

In France, manual instruction is firmly established. Special 
schools have existed for many years for the teaching of trades 
and the training of apprentices ; and, at present, tool-instruction 
is given to pupils of ten years and upwards, in all the free 
public schools of Paris. I visited the apprenticeship school on 
the Boulevard de la Villette, already described in Chap. XI., and 
found it in full and successful operation. Its object is to teach 
definite trades : joinery, pattern-making, blacksmithing, fitting, 
and the trades of the machinist, the locksmith, and the electri- 
cian. After a general survey of the whole field, trying his hand 
for a week or two at each one, the boy selects one, and hence- 
forth devotes himself entirely to it. Some drawing, mathemati- 
cal, and science work goes along with it ; but it is small compared 
with ours, while the shop-training is very thorough. Not only 
is every boy expected to follow the trade he learns, but in prac- 
tice he does follow it. Only boys who are to earn their living 
are found there. The idea of taking shop-training as a part 
of general culture never enters one's head. Probably should a 
3^oung man apply for such a purpose, he would be rejected, on 
the ground that he would deprive a poor boy of the opportunity 
to learn a trade ; for the capacity of the school is limited. In 
all the shops of the school, after a short series of general abstract 
exercises, the boys enter at once upon commercial work. 

The school which has exerted the greatest influence upon 
public education in Paris is the city free school on Rue Tourne- 
fort. This has been established many years, and has shown 



330 EUROPEAN SCHOOLS. [Chap. XIV; 

how much can be accomplished with pupils from ten to sixteen 
years of age. I visited it in May, 1885. I was sui'prised at its 
slim equipment. In its wood-working shop it had eight small 
benches with four vises on each, so that thirty-two boys could 
work at once. In its metal department there were ten vises^ 
one forge, and four or five small lathes. In the modeling and 
carving room there were twenty boj^s working at the edge of a 
long bench, and ten at frames of a very simple character, modeling 
figures in relief, using either wood, plaster, or clay. The school 
is well conducted, and its aim is as broad and high as possible. 
The wholesome effect of its course of training has led to the intro- 
duction of tool-work into the elementary grades of all the schools. 

I visited one of the large primary boys' schools of Paris, and 
saw the pupils at their various exercises. It was almost amus- 
ing to see the enthusiasm with which the little fellows went to 
their shop-work. Their benches were small and crude, and very 
close together ; but they served their purpose well. The wood 
the lads were using was very hard, and I wished they had a 
supply of American white pine for their first exercises. The 
teachers were greatly pleased with the moral and physical 
effects of the training. 

The theory of public schools in France is based upon the 
absolute necessity of the State's providing an education which 
shall make the poorest class better workmen and more intelligent 
citizens. 

Mechanical laboratories for the polytechnic schools are not 
to be found in France. To a certain extent in the government 
schools, students make up the deficiency by contact with actual 
work. The almost unrivaled chemical laboratories of- the Cen- 
tral School of Engineering in Paris are in striking contrast with 
the scant dynamic laboratories of the students in civil and 
mechanical engineering. 

The splendid Conservatory of Arts and Trades is unrivaled 
as a historical museum, but it has no working laboratory. 

At Chalons, there is one of the three fine government schools 
for the education of skilled foremen and superintendents.^ 

1 The other two are at Aix and Angers. Two more have been recently estab- 
lished (or are in process of establishment), at Lille and at Nevers. 



Chap. XIV.] MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AT CHALONS. 331 

I was delighted with their plant and method of instruction. 
For the first time I saw my own school out-done in equipment 
for shop-work. The young men were much older than ours ; all 
were fine, strong, manly fellows, and there was great dignity and 
system about all their work. The discipline was very strict ; 
and not a word was spoken in the shops, except by, or to, an 
instructor, unless two students were working together on the 
same job, -as in the forging-shop. The number and size of 
the tools were remarkable, and suggested a lavish expenditure 
of the public money. The students work six and three-fourths 
hours daily in the shops. This large amount of shop practice 
shows the bent of the school. The annual cost is from two 
hundred and thirty dollars to two hundred and eighty dollars 
per student, living expenses included. One half these students 
pay nothing ; the other half pay one hundred and twenty dol- 
lars each. 

In Germany the polj^technic schools are of very high grade, 
tho as a rule they are deficient in mechanical laboratories. 
In chemistry, and sometimes in physics, their working facijities 
are fine ; but in mechanics they have collections of models rather 
than laboratories. This was particularly noticeable at Berlin, 
Hanover, Carlsruhe, and Stuttgart in Germany, and in Zurich 
and Geneva in Switzerland. At Munich I found the best 
working laboratory of engineering I saw, excepting those in 
London. But manual training of a broad character is not to 
be found in Germauy to any extent. The lower technical 
schools are trade schools. There are immense numbers of 
these scattered all over Germany, and the industries taught 
vary with the locality. For instance, there are forty-four trade 
schools in the duchy of Baden for learning clock-making, wood- 
carving, hat-making, basket-plaiting, etc. By means of these 
trade schools, the children of workmen are trained to the 
occupation of their parents in a very direct manner. With 
their trade instruction, some general education is given ; so that 
the result is better workmen and better citizens as the years 
roll on. 

At Komatau in Bohemia is the famous royal mechanical 
school described so fully by Dr. Runkle. It is a school of 



832 EUROPEAN SCHOOLS. [Ohap. XIV. 

secondary grade, and is well furnished with shops and drawing 
rooms; and all the instruction appeared to be thorough. It can 
accommodate fifty boys, and appears to be generally full. 

I had heard Prest. C. O. Thompson say at Madison in 
1884, that the Komatau school was " moribund ; " and I was 
anxious to learn, by personal inspection, how far the statement 
was justified. I found it vigorous and prosperous. Several 
more schools on tlie same plan were being established by the 
Austrian government. 

My criticism on the school was, that relatively too much time 
was spent in the shop, and that the class method of instruction 
in tool-work was so little used. The divisions were small, and 
the pupils were not kept together. 

The schools of Holland and Belgium are similar to those in 
Germany. A boy's career in life is generally determined be- 
fore he is thirteen years old. If he is to be an artisan, he goes 
to a trade school ; if he is to be a mercliant, a soldier, a govern- 
ment officer, a literary man, or a gentleman of leisure, he is 
taught accordingly. One set of schools was regarded as special 
as another. At no one school were all classes supposed to 
attend. 

In nearly every instance throughout Europe, the trade 
schools received government aid. The paternal character of 
the governments which deliberately encouraged such industries 
as were peculiar to a people made this entirely consistent. 
For the most part, corporations or firms managed the schools, 
and furnished what additional means they needed. 

The Russian schools of St. Petersburg and Moscow, I did 
not visit; but a friend of mine ^ spent the summer of 1886 in 
Russia, and I have his full report of the nature and scope of 
their technical schools. They are strictly professional in char- 
acter, intended to produce mechanical engineers for the gov- 
ernment service. 

Their method of tool-instruction is most admirable, and, to a 
certain extent, is worthy of the widest imitation. Their course 

1 William Mather, Esq., of Manchester, Eng. His report of the schools of 
Russia, published as a part of the report of the Royal Commission, is the fullest 
account of Russian schools which has yet appeared. 



Chap. XIV",] THE SLOJD SCHOOLS OF SWSDEN. 333 

of training is six years, and naturally shop-work is the most 
important feature. During the first three years the students 
ai-e in the "instruction-shops." Systematic and logical exercises 
are used, and the method of class instruction by laboratory 
lectures is followed. This preliminary training during the first 
three years is broad in its character and generous in its scope. 
The last three years are spent in construction-shops on heavy, 
commercial work. It is obvious that the only part which can 
belong in a general educational institution is the first half. 

Just at the stage when the Russian student enters the con- 
sti'uction-shop to put in practice the principles and methods he 
has mastered, the American student leaves the educational 
institution altogether, and betakes himself to an establishment 
for special training, mechanical or otherwise. Elsewhere I have 
been happy to acknowledge my indebtedness to the Russians 
for their admirable method. 

Of the Slojd (^sloid) schools of Sweden, I know only by 
reports. They have been fully written up by Prof. Ordway, 
and more recently they have been under discussion in England. 
However well they may suit the wants and constitution of 
Swedish society, I am sure that sloid will never flourish on 
American soil. 

It must suffice if I mention three chief objections to the 
system : — 

1. The manual training involved is limited to wood-work. 

2. The pupils are taught and shown about their work sepa- 
rately, individually ; i.e., class-instruction is not given, and the 
several pupils in the laboratory are doing very different things. 

3. The things wrought are household furniture, or imple- 
ments and utensils to be carried home and used there. There 
appears to be no aim beyond making thrifty householders. 

In spite of the vast amount that has been said about the 
manual instruction in Europe, and in spite of the great benefits 
the trade schools have broiTght to their industries, and in spite 
of the greatly improved grade of workmen their schools have 
produced, — I found no system of public instruction which 
would bear transportation to the United States of America. 



334 EUROPEAN SCHOOLS. [Chap. XI7. 

Their schools have man}- excellent features, and their appropria- 
tions for schools are most ample ; but their long daily sessions, 
their long terms, and the conventional nature of their curricula 
unfit them, without great modifications, for use here. Their 
manual training is generally very narrow, and has for its object 
not mental and moral growth, but the acquisition of practical 
skill for subsequent definite use. 

Unless I am greatly in the wrong, our American idea of 
manual training as a feature of general education, not for a 
trade or a profession, but for the healthy growth and vigor of 
all the faculties, for general robustness of life and character, 
is far in advance of any model in a foreign land. I am not 
of those who think it indicative of fine breeding to decry 
American institutions, and laud extravagantly those of distant 
countries which will not bear transplanting. 

The manifest inferiority of schools when actually visited, and 
compared with their world-wide reputations, is almost painful. 
The only school of a manual character I visited in Europe 
which surpassed my expectations was the French government 
school at Chalons ; with all others I was disappointed. 



Chap. X\r"j PLANS FOM BUILV12iGti. 335 



CHAPTER XV. 

PLANS, SHOP DISCIPLINE, TEACHERS, REPORTS, ETC. 

AS to plans, a great variety could be given, adapted to 
various conditions. As a rule, existing buildings have 
been utilized for shops, and in but few cases have complete 
buildings been erected. The shops for technical schools are 
generally unsuited to a manual training school. They are 
either too small or too large, and they lack that uniformity of 
equipment which a section of from twenty to twenty-four pupils 
requires. 

Even in the case of the erection of a new building, local 
conditions are likely to influence the plan. The St. Louis and 
the Chicago manual training schools were organized complete 
in buildings designed and built for the purpose, and all the 
appointments for a boys' school were included. The Scott 
Manual Training School of Toledo comprises only shops, labora- 
tories, and drawing rooms, the study and recitation rooms being 
furnished by the city high school. The same is true of the Cleve- 
land and Denver manual training schools. Of the Tulane High 
School of New Orleans, I have no details. In a great majority 
of cases where shops have been attached to existing schools, 
unused rooms, too often in the basement, have been utilized. 
The purpose of this chapter is to make suggestions of value, 
first, when a complete manual training school is to be provided 
for ; and, secondly, when only the shops and drawing rooms are 
to be added to an existing school. 

Altho the building of the St. Louis Manual Training School 
was erected partly in 1879 and partly in 1882, and there was 
little to guide us in arranging the details, the plan is an admir- 
able one in most respects. Some of its deficiencies I shall 



336 PLAN^ SHOP DISCIPLINE, TEACHERS, ETC. [ Chap. XV. 

point out. Fig. 185 gives the plan of the third story. With 
the exception of one drawing division and one w^ood-working 
division, all the work of the youngest class is done on this 

floor. The drawing room is fur- 
nished with twenty-four stands, and 
each recitation room with twenty- 
four shelf-chairs. 

S is the wood-working room, with 
twenty -four benches and twenty- 
four lathes, four of which are not 
shown. The scale of the engrav- 
ing is about twenty - one feet to 
the inch. 




Fig. 135. St. Louis Manual Training School. — Plan or Third Story. 



The physical shop and laboratory are full of apparatus and 
tools for making more physical apparatus. These two rooms 
are used by the several divisions of the second-year class. 



Chap. XV.] 



FLOOR PLANS. — SECOND FLOOR. 



337 



Fig, 136 gives the plan of the second story. The middle 
class may have four divisions of twenty - two each. Their 
work takes them to all the floors. 

It will be observed that the wood- 
working room with lathes is directly 
under the drawing room and labo- 
ratory of the third story. This 
arrangement I criticise on the next 
page. 

The divisions which go to the 
forging-shop, which is shown in the 
next cut, generally pass through 
the corner of the yard. 




Fig. 136. St. Louis Manual Tuaining School. — Plan of Second Story. 



The walls of the various shops are generally of plain brick- 
work, which is whitewashed if there is any lack of light. 
Ceiling under the joice is unnecessary if the flooring is double. 



338 PLANS, SHOP DISCIPLINE, TEACHERS, ETC. [Chap. XV. 

Fig. 137 gives the plan of the first story, which is mainly for 
the use of the liighest grade, or third-year class. With the 

exception of the drawing, this class 
does all its work on this floor. 

The benches, B B, are shown 
in the engraving, as are also the 
dressing lockers, C. 

The lathes, drills, and other 
machine tools stand compactly 
arranged across the room. In the 
forging shop there are twenty-two 




Fig. 137. St. Louis Manual Training School. — Plan of First Story. 



The basement has, on the one side, the wash-rooms and 
dressing-rooms for the first-floor shops, the engine, and the 
engineer's repair-shop ; on the other side, the water-closets, etc., 
a play-room, a lunch-room, and the warm-air chamber. In a 



Chap. XV.] DEFECTS IN THE ST. LOUIS PLANS. 339 

fireproof room under the side steps is the oil-room. There is 
no basement to the forging-shop. The boiler is set in a separate 
building as a part of the university battery. As a rule, I would 
put the boiler in a special building near the base of the stack. 

There are three respects wherein these plans could be im- 
proved, which 1 feel it my duty to point out. 

1. The forging-shop, which is the noisiest shop in all, is rather 
too near the schoolrooms. In warm weather, when the windows 
are open, the noise is somewhat troublesome. I should prefer 
a plan which turned the shop wing ninety degrees to the left, 
so as to place the forging-shop directly beyond the machine- 
shop. In other words, I would put the school and drawing 
rooms at the head of a X, and the shops in the long central part, 
with the forging-shops at the extreme end. 

2. There is no well or shaft for the transmission of power to 
the several floors from the basement. The transmission should 
be from floor to floor by belts with suitable tighteners. Each 
shop should be furnished with a clutch, by means of which the 
teacher in charge may turn on his shop, or turn it off, at pleas- 
ure, without interfering with the other shops. At times the 
teacher needs a quiet room Avhere his voice may be easily heard, 
as he gives the theory of a machine, explains the details of a 
process, or criticises work before a class. In the transfer of 
power, gearing is too noisy for a school. The main shafting 
and pulleys of the machine-shop of the St. Louis school can not 
be stopped without stopping the engine. While this defect is 
hard to remedy, it may easily be avoided in a new plan. 

3. On the third floor, I would interchange the wood-working 
shop with the drawing and physics rooms. This would accom- 
plish two things : /rsf, it would place the drawing room and 
physical laboratory over a comparatively quiet room, as there is 
no noise in the molding room ; and, secondly., no divisions would 
pass through a shop where the boys are at work. 

These criticisms may aj)pear to be trifling and uncalled for, 
but they have force enough to serve others whose plans are yet 
to be drawn. I am not criticising another : I alone am respon- 
sible, and I have already given those who have followed us the 
benefit of these suggestions. . 



340 PLANS, SHOP DISCIPLINE, TEACHERS, ETC. [Ohap. XV. 

As a rule, the study and recitation rooms should be separated 
from the shops by two walls enclosing halls, stairways, or yard ; 
at the same time I should prefer to have all the rooms for a class 
on the same floor, or as nearly so as possible, and but a few 
steps away. It may not work badly to have a division cross the 
yard, but I advise strongly against sending a division out of 
the yard, or across the street. I do not favor the transfer of a 
division of students from one principal to another, and back 
again. No principal would like that arrangement in the case 
of such a study as arithmetic or spelling, and shop-work and 
drawing should be treated with precisely the same consider- ' 
ation. The same precautions should in all cases be taken to 
prevent irregularities and loss of time. In short, manual work 
should be treated as school work, and watched, and guarded, 
and sustained as such. Until such treatment is possible, it 
would be better to go without it.^ 

In cases where manual work is added to an existing school, 
the erection of a new building is generally necessary; but this 
should be so planned as to preserve the unity of the arrange- 
ment, and let the principal remain principal of the whole insti- 
tution. I take great pleasure in giviiig the details of a plan of 
such an addition to a large city high school, which I regard 
as in every way most admirable, and worthy of the widest 
following. I refer to the 

HIGH AND MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL OF TOLEDO, OHIO. 

The. addition is known as the Scott Manual Training School, 
for the reason that the additional building was erected and 
equipped, and its running expenses provided for, by an institu- 
tion known as the " Toledo University," originally endowed 
by Jesup W. and Susan Scott in 1872.2 

1 " The workshop should not be put into the cellar, nor supplied with bad tools, 
as tho anything or anywhere would do for it; but it should be dignified by 
giving it as good a room as is chosen for any other subject of the school course, 
and the tools and appliances should be as complete as the funds of the school will 
permit." — Prof. Rippek. 

2 The endowment was subsequently increased by the sons of Mr. Scott, 
William H., Frank J., and Maurice A. Scott, in 1874; and the entire trust was 
conveyed to the city in 1884. The only work thus far undertaken by the University 
has been the establishment of the Manual Training School. The Board oi 



Chap. XV.J TUE PLANS OF THE TOLEDO SCHOOL. 341 

The building was erected in 1885, and formally opened in 
December of that year. Meanwhile, considerable manual work 
had been done in the 4-ooms of the high school. Fig. 3, page 13, 
gives a cut of the addition. It is seen to consist of four stories, 
including the well-lighted rooms on the ground floor. P'or the 
sake of showing the arrangement of rooms, including wash and 
tool rooms, the ample provision for light in every shop, the com- 
parative isolation of the forging-shop from rooms likely to be 
disturbed by noise, and the numerous connections with the old 
building, I give the floor plans in full. Power is communicated 
to the upper floors through the hall-way. The only detail that 
would be improved by change, so far as I have heard, is the 
shallowness of the projection which includes the entrance. Had 
this projection been five or six feet more than it is, the office, 
library, and upper halls would have been greatly improved by 
their gain in size. 

Fig. 138 gives the ground floor plan. The boiler-house is 
under ground and beyond the wall on the right, by the arrow 
which shows the descending steps. 

The large shops are each forty by fift3^-five feet. The size of 
the other rooms may be determined by scale. 

In the plan of the first story (Fig. 139) the wood-working 
shop is furnished with lathes as well as benches, Avhile on the 
next floor (Fig. 140) only benches are shown. In Fig. 141, which 
gives the details of the third story, the broken lines indicate the 
skylights, which supplement the short windows in the walls. 

The great distinguishing feature of the Toledo school is its 
provision for giving manual training to girls. Girls in divisions 
by themselves are not only taught all the drawing that the boys 
have, but light wood-work (including wood-carving), cooking 
(as an illustration of applied chemistry), needlework, cutting, 
and fitting (as applications of mechanical drawing). 

Directors, as now organized, consists of the mayor, six members nominated by - 
him, and six nominated by the Board of Education; all are to be confirmed 
by the Common Council of Toledo. William H. Scott is the president, and 
A. E. Macomber, secretary. 

This union of forces in the cause of education exhibits the high importance of 
enlightened liberality and public spirit in the managers of public trusts, and I do 
not hesitate to commend their action to the friends of education in all communities. 




Fig. 138. TOLEDO HIGH AND MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. 
342 




WOOD WORKING SHOP 




l=-fc_3tH 



^ 



Fig. 139. TOLEDO HIGH AND MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. 



343 



344 PLANS, SHOP DISCIPLINE, TEACHERS, ETC. [ohap. XV. 

The cooking-room, on the third floor in Fig. 141, is thus 
described in the last catalog of the school : — 

" This is forty by twenty-seven feet, with one large Garland range, two 
gas cooking-stoves, and five double tables five feet long by five feet wide, 
each table accommodating four pupils. Each girl has her own table space 
for work, and there is a small gas-stove for every two pupils. Each table 
space has a drawer and cupboard below it for all essential utensils, and each 
pupil must personally go through every process taught. At the other end 
of the room are pantry closets for the teacher's use, and a commodious 
wash-room, with all the conveniences for girls, including individual closets 
for the keeping of aprons, clothes, etc." 

In another respect the Toledo school has led the way ; viz., 
in giving to boys of the senior grammar grade substantially the 
shop-work and drawing I have given in Chap. II. as appro- 
priate for our first year. The result of their experience thus 
far appears to show that the work is not too difficult for them, 
tho it was found necessary to give less time in the shop. I 
hope the experiment will be continued at Toledo and elsewhere, 
and always under judicious supervision. A very young child 
may be made to go through certain motions, just as he may be 
taught to repeat words in an unknown tongue, and yet com- 
pletely fail to make any rational progress thereby. There is, of 
course, a manual training suited in quality and quantity for the 
pupils of each of the lower grades ; the important thing is to 
find it. This is true for girls as well as for boys. I give in an 
Appendix the course of study for girls in the Toledo school. 

The cost of the addition to the Toledo High School, "includ- 
ing the underground boiler and coal-rooms placed outside the 
main building, sewer connections, grading, walks, steam-piping," 
etc., is given as $22,951.44. 

SHOP DISCIPLINE. 

■ I know that many teachers will at first be greatly in doubt 
as to what they ought to ask, and what they may reasonably 
expect, of pupils during shop hours in the matter of discipline. 
Of course the standard should be different from that in a study 
or recitation room. The legitimate noise of a shop is not 
demoralizing, and the teacher ought not to make it a point to 



Chap. XV.] SHOP BEGULATIONS. 345 

reduce the noise to a minimum. The main object is to secure 
intellectual and manual activity on the subject legitimately in 
hand. Close attention to business should be insisted on. All 
trifling and irrelevant matters should be excluded; but it is not 
at all necessary to forbid a boy who is in doubt from asking a 
neighbor what to do, or from watching for a moment his method 
of procedure. Such assistance is very stimulating, and may be 
valuable to both parties. The teacher, who is supposed to 
know all that is going on in his room, is the proper one to give 
aid ; but he will often send one boy to another for the purpose 
of calling attention to some superior work, or of emphasizing a 
point by requiring one boy to explain it to another. Good 
work should be freely passed around and inspected. 

At the end of a shop exercise, it is a good plan to allow the 
utmost freedom of communication. This may last two or three 
minutes. No boy can be deeply interested in his work, and not 
have a burning, almost an overmastering, desire to talk about 
it to his fellows. To recognize this natural and healthy appe- 
tite, and thus to reasonably control it, is certainly judicious. 
When a boy knows that he is soon to have an opportunity to 
speak his mind to his neighbor, he is easily persuaded to wait 
till the appointed time comes. 

A small gong should be used in each shop for signaling a 
class : when to break ranks and go to work, when to assemble 
at the teacher's bench, when to " clean up," when to file out of 
the room, etc. Each division before leaving the shop should 
brush off the benches, machine tools, and other appliances in 
use, restore all tools to their places, and put all in order for the 
next division. This takes but two or three minutes, and it 
encourages the formation of a habit of order. The floor should 
be cleaned every night by the janitor. 

Forge and metal work is impossible without soiled hands and 
faces; and the students should be encouraged to remove all 
their linen, and to put on blouses which shall thoroughly pro- 
tect their underwear. A good wash in warm water with plenty 
of soap, followed by the use of a clean, dry towel, will bring 
the young workmen back to the schoolroom none the worse for 
their physical contact with the entities of the shop. 




Fig. 140. TOLEDO HIGH AND MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. 
346 




Fig. Ul, TOLEDO HIGU AND MANUAL TRAINLSTG SCHOOL. 

347- 



348 PLANS, SHOP DISCIPLINE, TEACHERS, ETC. [Ohap. XT. 

Of course it is readily seen that each student must have his 
separate locker, in which his valuables (sleeve-buttons, studs, 
watch, etc.) may be left secure : not even a manual training 
school is proof against a thief or a boy with a mania for 
pilfering. 

REPORTS. 

The work of the shop should be reported on as regularly as 
that in any branch of study ; and occasionally written exami- 
nations should be held on shop-work for the purpose of testing 
the pupils' ability to use correctly names and technical terms, 
and to describe processes logically. As in literature, science, 
and art, there are many things that are arbitrary and conven- 
tional, and they must be so learned as to be correctly used. A 
half-quarterly report should show one's degree, of success in 
each branch of work and study, and a boy should be made to 
feel that no amount of success in one direction can adequately 
atone for poor work in another. It is perfectly natural for a 
boy to enjo^ some kinds of work more than other kinds, and to 
succeed in one line more readily and more fully than in another; 
but all may easil}^ see the propriety of equal fidelity to every 
demand of the program. The freedom of choice which may be 
entirely proper at a later stage, when the course of the school 
is finished, is altogether out of place in a school one of whose 
chief purposes is to determine by a broad and liberal training 
what one's special aptitudes really are. Mere fancy, born of 
accident and unequal acquaintance, must not be regarded as 
evidence of innate capacity. 

TEACHERS. 

Good teachers are, of course, the most valuable part of a 
school's outfit ; in this respect, the manual training school is 
not singular. The broader his training and culture, the better 
the teacher, in the shop as well as elsewhere. Above all, the 
shop teacher should know fairly well the whole course of the 
school, particularly in drawing and shop-work. Every teacher 
should be able to take the point of view of those whom he 
teaches, and to enter into hearty sympathy with them, — to see 
with their eyes, to judge from their limited experiences, to 



Chap. XV.] QUALIFICATIONS OF A SHOP TEACHER. 349 

see beforehand just the mistakes they will make, and the diffi- 
culties they must meet and overcome. Admit no narrowness 
to the shop. While recognizing the manliness of intelligent 
skill in every field, do not allow any unworthy tricks of a trade 
to degrade the tone of the school. 

At present, good shop teachers are scarce. As a rule, the 
reputed fine workmen of twenty years' experience, who learned 
their trade in the old-fashioned way, are quite unsuited to a 
manual training school. They find it impossible to adopt our 
.methods, and to appreciate our aims. Unless a boy expects to 
be a blacksmith, they can not understand why he should care 
to learn the principles of forging ; and what can be the object 
of tool-work of any sort, except to make something of use ? 

For a teacher, give me first a graduate of a manual training 
school, who has subsequently taken a more advanced course in 
polytechnic or college work. If such can not be had, give me 
a young teacher who has had a few terms at a manual institute, 
and who has caught the spirit while acquiring the art of manual 
training. Do not underrate the position, and give the teacher 
less credit or less pay than those in the other departments. It 
will be found that a high order of intelligence and skill in more 
than one field is needed for a successful shop teacher.^ 

The most essential thing, perhaps, is the divine faculty of 
teaching. The ability to do work one's self is no evidence 
of one's ability to teach it. He must have a logical, analytic 
mind ; and he must be able to subdivide the steps of progress, 
so as to bring the separate intervals of advance just inside the 
capacity of his class. The demands of the hour must be seen 
to be reasonable, requiring vigorous effort, but not exceeding 
one's strength. The teacher is not to carry his pupils : he is 
only to show them where and how to climb. 

But this is the old, old story. If teaching is a science, its 
methods are such as can be understood with thoughtful study ; 
and the substance of what I would say is, that manual educa- 

1 " The teacher must be a man whose heart is in his work, and one who will 
create interest and enthusiasm among the pupils; accordingly he must not be the 
least intelligent, or the worst paid member of the staff. Better no workshop at 
all, than acohl, half-hearted instructor." — Prof. Ripper. 



350 PLANS, SHOP DISCIPLINE, TEACHERS, ETC. [chap. XV. 

tion and manual teachers should be rated and secured as other 
educations and other teachers are rated and secured. 

COST. OF MATEBIALS. 

Five dollars a year will about cover the cost of materials and 
repair per pupil in a wood-working shop. In metal work, the 
expense is greater, — say, eight dollars per pupil, — particularly 
if specimens are preserved or given away. Projects are expen- 
sive, unless the students furnish their own material. In the 
latter case it may be well to have it understood that the articles 
are to be the property of the makers as soon as the year's exhibit 
is over. If the school has permanent use for such articles, it 
should pay for the materials. This remark should refer to the 
drawing as well as to the shop-work. 

LUNCH. 

The long active day of the manual training school should not 
be allowed to pass without a substantial lunch. This should be 
something more than an apple or an orange. Bread and meat, 
soup, milk, coffee, pastry, and fruit, should furnish a good meal. 

Thirty minutes are sufficient for a lunch at the building ; and, 
where lunch is so taken, the afternoon session may close at half 
past three, instead of at four o'clock.^ 

There are many other matters of greater or less importance 
to a school for boys who are just upon the threshold of manhood, 
which my readers must take for granted. Music, debates, 
declamations, etc., in reason are as appropriate here as any- 
where, and nothing need be said about them ; but, like all other 
good things, they should not be allowed to crowd out other 
things equally and perhaps more valuable. As I have said else- 
where, there are many avenues to culture ; keep them all open. 

1 This is the case at the St. Louis Manual Training School. A caterer sets 
a table in the lunch-room at one o'clock. Ten cents will buy a fair meal. The 
greater proportion of the students bring at least a part of their lunch from home, 
which they eat with the others at the lunch-table. 



APPENDIX I. 



ST. LOUIS MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL COURSE OF STUDY. 



FIRST-YEAR CLASS. 

Arithmetic eom][)]eted. Algebra, to equations. 

English language, its structure and use. Study of selected pieces. History 

of the United States. 
Latin grammar and reader may be taken in place of English and history. 
Huxley's Introduction to Science. Physical geography. Botany. 
Drawing, mechanical and free-liand. Penmanship. 
Carpentry and joinery. Wood-carving. Wood-turning. 

SECOND-YEAR CLASS. 

Algebra, through quadratics. Geometry begun. 

Natural philosophy. Experimental work in the physical laboratory. Prin- 
ciples of mechanics. 

English composition and literature. Rhetoric. English history. 

Latin (Csesar) may be taken in place of rhetoric and history. 

Dratving. — Line-shading and tinting, machines. Development of surfaces, 
free-hand detail drawing. Isometric projections. 

Forging. — Drawing, upsetting, bending, punching, welding, tempering; 
pattern-making, molding, soldering. 

THIRD-YEAR CLASS. 

Geometry continued. Plane trigonometry, mensuration. 

English composition and literature. History. Elementary political economy. 

French or German may be taken in place of English and history, or in place 

of the science study. 
Physiology. Elements of chemistry. Book-keeping. Students who have taken 

Latin, and who intend to enter the Polytechnic School after completing 

the course in this School, will take history in place of physiology, 

chemistry, and book-keeping. 
Drawing. — Brush-shading, shadows, geometrical problems, architecture, 

machines. 
Work in the machine-shop. — Bench-work and fitting, turning, drilling, 

planing, screw-cutting, etc. Study of the steam-engine. 

351 



352 



APPENDICES. 



APPENDIX II. 



THE TOLEDO MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. 



From the last catalog I cut the following : — 
COURSE OF COMBINED STUDY AND TRAINING FOR GIRLS. 



(1.) 
(2.) 
(3.) 

(4.) 
(5.) 



(1.) 

(2.) 
(3.) 

(4.) 
(5.) 



(1.) 
(2.) 
(3.) 
(4.) 

(5.) 



(1.) 
(2.) 

(3.) 

(4.) 
(5.) 



DOMESTIC ECONOMY DEPARTMENT. 

FIKST YEAK. 

Mathematics. — Arithmetic. 

Science. — Physical geography. 

Languarje. — Grammar, spelling, ^/riting, English composi- 
tion. 

Drawing. — Free hand and mechanical, lettering. 

Domestic Economy. — Light carpentry, wood-carving, care 
and use of tools. 

SECOND YEAR. 

Mathematics. — Algebra, arithmetic. 

Science. — Physiology and botany. 

Language. — Grammar, rhetoric, writing. 

Drawing. — Free-liand and mechanical. Designs for wood- 
carving. 

Domestic Economy. — Clay-modeling, wood-turning ; intro- 
duction to course in cooking, or garment cutting and 
making. 

THIRD YEAR. 

Mathematics. — Geometry, arithmetic reviewed. 

Science. — Physics. 

Language. — English composition, history. 

Drawing. — Free-liand and architectural, designing from 

plant and leaf forms. 
Domestic Economy. — Instruction in preparing and cooking 

food, purchasing household supplies, care of the sick, 

etc. 

FOURTH YEAR. 

Mathematics. — Plane trigonometry, mechanics. 

Science. — Chemistry, book-keeping, ethics ; rights and 
duties, laws of right conduct. 

Language. — Political economy, English literature and com- 
position. 

Drawing. — Machine and architectural details, decorative 
designing. 

Domestic Economy. — Cutting, making, and fitting of gar- 
ments, household decorations, typewriting, etc. 



Senior 

Grammar 

School. 

Manual 

Training 

School. 

Junior 

High 

School. 

Manual 
Training 
School. 



Middle 

High 

School. 

Manual 

Training 

School. 



Senior 

High 

School. 



Manual 

Training 

School. 



APPENDICES. 853 

" The above course in Domestic Economy is arranged with special refer- 
ence to giving young women such a liberal and practical education as will 
inspire them with a belief in the dignity and nobleness of an earnest woman- 
hood, and incite them to a faithful performance of the every-day duties of 
life ; it is based upon the assumption that a pleasant home is an. essential 
element of broad culture, and one of the surest safeguards of morality and 
virtue. 

" The design of this course is to furnish thorough instructions in applied 
housekeeping, and the sciences relating thereto; and students will receive 
practical drill in all branches of housework, in the purchase and care of 
family supplies, and in general household management, but will not be 
expected to perform more labor than is actually necessary for the desired 
instruction. 

" In cookery, practical instructions will be given in the means employed 

in BOILING, BROILING, BAKING, FRYING, and MIXING, aS folloWS : — 

"Boiling. — Practical illustrations of boiling and steaming, and treat- 
ment of vegetables, meats, fish, and cereals, soup-making, etc. 

" Broiling. — Lessons and practice in : meat, chicken, fish, oysters, etc. 

*' Bread-Making. — Chemical and mechanical action of materials used. 
Manipulations in bread-making in its various departments. Yeasts, and 
their substitutes. 

"Baking. — Heat in its action on different materials in the process of 
baking. Practical experiments in baking bread, pastry, puddings, cake, 
meats, fish, etc. 

" Frying. — Chemical and mechanical principles involved and illustrated 
in the frying of vegetables, meats, fish, oysters, etc. 

"Mixing. — The aH of making combinations, as in soups, salads, pud- 
dings, pies, cakes, sauces, dressings, flavorings, condiments, etc. 

" Marketing and Economy, Etc. — The selection and purchase of 
household supplies. General instructions in systematizing and economizing 
household work and expenses. The anatomy of animals used as food, and 
how to choose and use the several parts. Lessons on the qualities of water 
and steam; the construction of stoves and ranges ; the properties of different 
fuels. 

" The Textile Fabric Work will cover instructions in garment cutting 
and making; the economical and tasteful use of materials ; millinery, etc." 



354 



APPENDICES. 



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APPENDICES. 355 



APPENDIX IV. 



MANUAL TRAINING IN THE HIGH SCHOOL. 



[From the address of Gen. Francis A. Walker, president of the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology, at the Chicago meeting of the National Educational 
Association in July, 1887.J 

Whatever other arts may, in the development of this system, come to 
be associated with carpentry and wood-turning in the grammar schools, it 
appears to me, that, at the very beginning, we may demand a complete course 
of both wood and metal working for that smaller number of advanced pupils 
who go forward into the high school. If it is for the interest of the State 
that these young persons shall, at the public expense, be further educated 
and cultivated on one side of their minds, it is not equally, but doubly, 
desirable that the education and cultivation of their other powers and facul- 
ties should be kept up in the high school. It is little less than a shame that 
we should graduate from these schools pupils who are highly accomplished 
in language, composition, and declamation, but are less keen in perception, 
less careful in observation, weaker in practical judgment, with less of visual 
accuracy, less of manual dexterity, less of the executive faculty, — the power, 
that is, of doing things instead of merely thinking about them, talking about 
them, and writing about them, — than the children of the ordinary ungraded 
district school. 

Whatever views one may hold of the mutual relations of the child and 
the State in the grammar school, it can be gainsaid by no one, that, if the 
■community is to be called upon to carry the more favored children forward 
through long and expensive courses of advanced education and training, 
those who, on behalf of the community, direct the schools of this class, have 
the absolute right to impose whatever terms and conditions, to exact and to 
withhold whatever the public interest may require. Cherishing the views 
I do as to what constitutes a complete education, I would allow no pupil to 
graduate from a high school who was not as proficient and exact in mechan- 
ical as in grammatical exercises. I would not make myself responsible for 
adding to the number of youth who have been trained in description, with- 
out having been taught to observe the things they should describe ; who have 



356 APPENDICES. 

spent years in the art of rhetorical elaboration and ornamentation, without 
acquiring any adequate body and substance upon which to exercise those 
arts ; who are clever in dialectics and declamation, but purblind in percep- 
tion, and feeble in execution ; great at second-hand knowledge, but confused 
and difladent when thrown upon their own resources ; skillful with the pen, 
but using any other tool awkwardly and ignorantly. 

The mischief we can possibly do, through a one-sided education, to those 
who stop short with the grammar school, is fortunately limited. These 
children, escaping from tuition before they have got their growth, and going^ 
at once to work, have an opportunity to cure in part the faults, and supply in 
part the deficiencies, of their education. That work, of course, does them 
far less good, and they do it far less well, than if the foundation had been 
laid in early youth, under proper guidance and instruction. Yet, at least, 
they are saved from growing up, and growing out, all on one side, like the 
unhappy youth who are destined to go on, for three or seven years more, 
rehearsing the opinions of others ; memorizing facts ascertained by others ; 
practicing a simulated passion in declamation and an artificial taste in com- 
position, making much of grammatical niceties, painfully polishing periods 
without much regard to the thoughts these should enclose, going over and 
over a weary round of second-hand information and second-hand ideas, 
and acquiring a few purely conventional accomplishments. 

We hear much of the vulgar contempt of so-called self-made men towards 
scholars ; of their distrust, in practical matters, of school-made and book- 
read men. Doubtless some part of this feeling is of vulgar origin, due to 
jealous envy or ignorance ; but a far larger part I believe to be perfectly just, 
arising from a correct apprehension of the natural effects of long-continued 
study and exercise within the traditional lines of high-school and college 
instruction, producing a disposition to hesitate, to procrastinate, to multiply 
distinctions, to refine in pi-eparation, to stand shivering on the verge of action. 
Doubtless many school and college-bred men, when thrown into action, are 
found to have enough of robust manhood to overcome the ill effects of their 
early training, especially if in school or college they were not very good 
scholars ; but would it not be better from the first to associate with the 
dialectical, grammatical, and rhetorical exercises of our schools, and with 
the perhaps necessary acquisition of much mere gazetteer, cyclopaedic, and 
dictionai-y information, studies and exercises which shall not only prevent 
the formation of distinctly bad habits of mind and will, but shall positively 
develop those powers and faculties which the very first access to the duties of 
professional and business life shows to be the most useful of our endowments? 

For one, I believe that the introduction of the new studies and exercises 
which we are advocating will not prove a mere addition to the work of the 
school or college. I believe it will also profoundly modify the instruction 
given within traditional lines. Boys and young men who have learned to 
observe for themselves, to acquire knowledge at first .hand, to give effect 
to their purposes, and a form to their ideas ; who have been accustomed to 



APPENDICES. 357 

impose their will upon matter, and to make it take shape to suit their intel- 
lectual conceptions ; who know how to project, to plan, to execute, — wil] have 
little patience with much that makes up the traditional curriculum. They 
will demand to be brought face to face with facts. They will insist upon 
going to the bottom of any matter they have' to deal with. That genuine 
intellectual honesty which is the first-fruit of the objective study of concrete 
things will make them scorn to defend, in dialectical and rhetorical practice, 
theses which they do not thoroughly believe. They will grudge every hour 
spent in memorizing matter for which they can at any time resort to the 
gazetteer or cyclopaedia. It will be hard to impose on such students with 
sounding names, deceive them with sophistries, or bear them down by 
authority. They will cave much for principles, little for the manner in which 
these may be dressed up for efEect, or tricked out for public admiration. 



358 APPENDICES. 



APPENDIX V. 



MANUAL TRAINmC IN SCHOOL EDUCATION. 

By sir PHILIP MAGNUS 



By manual training one commonly means exercises in the use of the 
tools employed in working wood and iron 

It can not be too often repeated that the object of workshop practice, as 
a part of general education, is not to teach a boy a trade, but to develop his 
faculties, and to give him manual skill ; that, although the carpenter's bench 
and the turner's lathe are employed as instruments of such training, the 
object of the instruction is not to create carpenters or joiners, but to famil- 
iarize the pupil with the properties of such common substances as wood and 
iron, to teach the hand and eye to work in unison, to accustom the pupil to 
exact measurements, and to enable him by the use of tools to produce actual 
things from drawings that represent them ... To assume that the best 
education can be given through the medium of books only, and can not be 
equally obtained from the study of things, is a survival of the hiedisevalism. 
against which nearly all modern authorities protest. 

But there is another and more deeply rooted error in this argument. 
People often talk and write as if school-time should be utilized for teaching 
those things which a child is not likely to care to learn in after-life, whereas 
the real aim of school education should be to prepare, as far as possible, 
for the whole work of life. . . . The endeavor of all educators should be, 
to establish such a relation between school instruction and the occupations of 
life as to prevent any break of continuity in passing from one to the other. 
The methods by which we gain information and experience in the busy 
world should be identical with those adopted in schools. 

It is because the opposite theory has so long prevailed, that our school- 
training has proved so inadequate a preparation for the real work of life. 

The demand for technical instruction, both in our elementary and in our 
secondary schools, is a protest against the contrast which has so long existed 
between the subjects and methods of school-teaching and the practical work 
of every-day life. 



APPENDICES. 359 

We are always justly complaining that in this country children leave 
school at too young an age, before they can have had time to properly assimi- 
late the knowledge they have acquired, with the result that they soon forget 
a great part of the little they have learned. At the age of fifteen or sixteen 
they begin to feel the want of technical instruction. There can be little 
doubt, if elementary education were made more practical, that parents would 
be more willing, even at some sacrifice, to let their children benefit by it. 
They are often led to take their children away from school, because they do 
not see much use in the "schooling." Of course, the desire to secure the 
child's early earnings operates in very many cases ; but I am convinced that 
it would be easier to persuade parents to foi'ego these earnings, if the school- 
teaching had more dii-ect reference to the work iu which the children are 
likely to be subsequently occupied. 

A workshop has recently been fitted in the school attached to St. Jude's 
Church, Whitechapel. Arrangements have been made forgiving instruction 
in carpentry and turnery to boys, and in modeling and wood-carving to girls 
of the upper standards, and the results of the lessons have fully justified the 
most sanguine expectations of the advocates of this kind of instruction. 
Those who have visited these schools have been struck with the cheerful 
interest shown by the children in their work, and by the effect of the teach- 
ing in quickening their perceptive faculties and in stimulating their intelli- 
gence. The conti'ast between the listless and often inattentive attitude of 
children occupied with some ordinary class-lesson, and the eager eyes and 
nimble fingers of the same children at the carpenter's or modeling bench, is 
most instructive ; and no one who has seen it can have any doubt of the edu- 
cational value of this kind of training. These results, it must be remem- 
bered, have been attained by teachers most of whom have themselves been 
trying experiments, and have been working by the light of nature, without 
any well-considered methods. Under properly trained instructors the results 
would doubtless have been far more satisfactory. 

There is good reason to believe that the stimulating effect of workshop 
instruction on the intelligence of children will be such, that, notwithstanding 
the loss of the time spent in the shop, their progress in their ordinary studies 
will be in no way retai'ded. 

Nearly all educationists have pointed out the many advantages of 
enabling children at an early age to realize the connection betweeii knowing 
and doing. Comenius has well said, " Let those things that have to be done 
be learned by doing them." Rousseau has pithily expressed a similar idea 
in saying, " Souvenez-vous qu'en toute chose vos lemons doivent etre plus en 
actions qu'en discours ; car les enfants oublient aisement ce qu'ils ont dit et 
ce qu'on leur a dit, mais non pas ce qu'ils ont fait et ce qu'on leur a fait " 
(Remember that in every thing your lessons ought to be more in actions 



360 APPENDICES. 

than in speech ; for children easily forget v?hat they have said and what has 
been said to them, but not what they have done and what has been done to 
them). 

In what I have said, I have endeavored to show that workshop instruction 
may be made a part of a liberal education ; that, as an educational discipline, 
it serves to train the faculties of observation, to exercise the hand and eye 
in the estimation of form and size, and the physical properties of common 
things; that the skill acquired is useful in every occupation of life, and is 
especially serviceable to those who are likely to become artisans, by inducing 
taste and aptitude for manual work, by tending to shorten the period of 
apprenticeship, by enabling the learner to apply to the practice of his trade 
the correct methods of inquiry which he has learned at school, and by afford- 
ing the necessary basis for higher technical education, — Contemporari/ 
Review. 



ITs^DEX, 



Adams, Charles Francis, jun., 181, 206, 302. 

Adler, Dr. Felix, 14, 178, 206, 207, 215. 

Allan Glen's Institution, 176, 328. 

Apprenticeship, 258, 267-. 314-316. 

Apprenticeship schools, 233, 234, 270, 271, 296. 

Articles not sold, 194, 195, 293, 294, 321-323. 

Assistant class instructors not desirable, 126, 127. 

Attendance affected by manual training, 168, 173, 177, 203, 204. 

Baltimore Manual Training School, 11. 

Boston Industrial School Association, 263, 282, 283. 

Boyer, E. K., views of, 173, 174. 

Boynton, John, endows Worcester Free Institute, 1. 

Brazing and soldering, 108. 

Brown, William, 8. 

Cambridge workshop of Prof. Stuart, 328, 329. 

Caste, effect of manual training upon, 317, 318. 

Chicago Manual Training School, 12, 335. 

Chicago School Board adopts manual training, 14. 

Chucking, 58. 

Cincinnati Technical (Manual Training) School, 14. 

Citizenship, duties of, 131. 

Civics, outline of, 130, 131. 

Cleveland Manual Training School, 14, 174. 

Compton, Supt. H. W., 168. 

Conzelman, Gottlieb, 4, 7, 9-11, 285. 

Cores and Core-boxes, 112, 113, 124, 125. 

Cost of forging tools, 85. 

Cost of machine-shop tools, 134. 

Cost of materials, 350. 

Cost of plant, 199, 237. 

Cost of Toledo Manual Training School, 344. 

Cost of wood- working tools, 27-29. 

Course of study of St. Louis Manual Training School, 194, 217, 292, 351. 

Course of study for girls, 352, 353. 

Cupples, Samuel, 7, 8, 11, 201. 

361 



362 INDEX. 

Davidson, Thomas, 320. 

Davis, John T., S. 

Deila-Vos, Victor, 2, 4. 

Denver Manual Training School, 14, 335. 

Dickinson, Secretary, 307-309, 318. 

Discipline of the shop, 54, 344, 345. 

Dixon, E. M., views of, 176, 328. 

Dowd, Supt., 224. 

Drawing, for first year of manual training school, 18-2^. 

Drawing, for second year of manual training school, 77-84. 

Drawing, for third year of luanual training school, 132. 

Drawing, for the shop, 38. 

Drawing, free-hand projections, 23. 

Drawing, instruments for, 22. 

Drawing, isometric projections, 18, 19. 

Drawing, orthographic projections, principles of, 18, K-'. 

Drawing, sections, 21, 22. 

Drawing, use of rulers in, 24. 

Drawing, value of, 187, 188, 257, 311, 312. 

Economic value of manual training, 196, 197, 230, 236, 296, 308. 

Education, defective, 183, 184, 215, 244, 245, 263, 310. 

Education, luxuries in, 191, 355-357. 

Eliot, Chancellor William G., 7, 8, 192. 

Eliot, H. W., 8. 

Emerson, quotations from, 181, 189. 

English manual training schools, 327, 328. 

English, study of, 17, 75, 130, 304. 

European schools, 248, 249, 269-271, Chap. XIV. 

Exercise in filing, 280, 281. 

Exercises in forging, 89-104. 

Exercises in iron and steel fitting, 143-148. 

Exercises in joinery, 38-49. 

Exercises in wood-turning, 60-66. 

Exercises in wood-carving, 66-72, 

Expression, the arts of, 185-187. 

Fan for exhaiist, 84. 
Farrar, Canon, views of, 219. 
Fire, management of, 104-107. 
Fiske, Prof. John, 225. 
Foley, Thomas, testimony of, 198. 
Forge, management of fire, 104-107. 
Forging, cost of tools for, 85. 
Forging, exercises in, 89-104. 
Forging-shop, cut of, 86. 
Forging-shop, outfit of, 84, So. 
Forging, the elements of, 85-88. 
Franke, Prof. Kuno, views of, 170, 171. 



INDEX. 363 



French technical schools, 192, 193, 329, 330. 

Fruits of manual training. Chap. VIII., 213, 238, 308- 

Garlin, Anna C, 265. 

German schools, 331. 

Girls, education of, 7, 216, 341, 344, .352, 353. 

Graduates, occupations of, 154. 

Graduates, records of, 152-155. 

Graduates, testimony of, 156-165. 

Graduates, wages of, 156. 

Grammercy Park School, 14. 

Greek, futility of study of, 298, 299. 

Gregory, Frest. J. M., 2. 

Hale, Dr. E. E., 30.5-307. 

Ham, Charles H., 172, 188. 

Harris, Dr. William T., 208, 230, 246. 

Harrison, Edwin, 7, 9, 201. 

Heat, production of, by iron-cutting, 142. 

Heat, production of, by wood-turning, 57. 

Hinsdale, Supt., 204. 

Holden, S. E., views of, 171, 172. 

Home training, 234, 235. 

House, X. W., exercises in wood-carving by, 68. 

Hudson, Dr. H. X., 305. 

Huse, William L., 8. 

Industrial School Association of Boston, 263, 282, 283. 

Industrial schools, 233. 

Intellectual influence of manual training, 204-206, 223, 228. 

.Tacobson, Col. Augustus, 172, 200, 222. 
.James, Supt. Henry M., views of, 173. 
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, views of, 297. 
Jones, Charles E., lesson by, 104-107. 

Komatau, Bohemia, school at, 3, 193, .331, 332. 

Literary training compared with scientific, 218, 250-25!''. 
London School Board introduces manual training, 180. 
Lunch, need of, 350. 

MacAlister, Supt., 23.5. 

Machine-shop, character of, 1.36. 

Machine-shop, cost of outfit, 134. 

]Machine-shop, cut of, 1.35. 

Machine-shop, exercises, 143-149. 

Machine-shop, outfit of, 134. 

Machine-shop, tools, characteristics of, 136-?42. 



364 INDEX. 

Mackintosh, Miss May, IVcs. 

Macomber, A. E., 340. 

Magnus, Sir Pliilip, 218, 219, 327, 358-360. 

Manchester Manual Training School, 328. 

Manual Labor School, Miller, 324. 

Manual labor schools, 232. 

Manual occupations affected by manual training, 211, 212. 

Manual training, cost of, 237. 

Manual training, economic value of, 196, 197, 230, 23j, 296, 308. 

Manual training, fruits of, Chap. VIII., 213, 238.^ 

Manual training in ancient times, 261. 

Manual training in high schools, 355-357. 

Manual training, moral influence of, 184, 206, 207, 231. 

Manual training, object of, 194, 229, 358-360. 

Manual Training School of St. Louis: — 

cost of, 199. 

established, 5, 335. 

history of, 9-11. 

managing board of, 8. 

ordinance of, 5. 

origin of name, 7, 8. 

plans of, 336-340. 

prospectus of, 6, Chap. XII. 
Manual training school not a special school, 319. 
Marking shop exercises, 50-53, 281. 
Massachusetts Eighth Regiment, 276. 
Materials, cost of, 350. 

Mather, William, royal commissioner, 178, 179, 320. 
Merriam, George S., 181, 182. 
Miller Manual Labor School, 324. 
Miller, Ralph H., 153, 159, 177. 
Milton, views of, on education, 240, 241. 
Minneapolis adopts manual training, 15. 
Molding, 108-119. 
Molding, outfit of, 111, 112. 
Money values, study of, 324-326. 
Moral influence of manual training, 184, 206, 207, 231. 

Occupation, choice of, 209, 302. 

Oliver, H. K., 244. 

Omaha High School introduces manual training, 14, 173. 

Ordway, Prof. J. M., views of, 169, 333. 

Page, .James A., report of, 174, 175. 

Pattern-making, 108, 119-125. 

Philadelphia Manual Training School, 14, 173. 

Pliiladelphia Social Science Association address, 1885, Chap. IX. 

Phillips, Wendell, 265. 

Physics, teaching, 76, 77. 



INDEX. 365 

Plans of St. Louis school, 336-340. 

Plans of Toledo school, 340-347. 

Playfair, Sir Lyon, 179, 302. 

Policy of shop, 194, 195, 293, 294, 321-323. 

Polytechnic school, origin, aims, and methods of, Chap. X. 

Power, basis of, 301. 

Professions, number of, 226, 241. 

Pi'ogram of first year of manual training school, 16. 

Program of second year, 75. 

Program of third year, 12S. 

Program of Toledo Manual Training School, 354. 

Pi-ojects, 65, 104, 148. 

Promotions, 74. 

Public school, function of, Chap. XIII. 

Reports, 348. 

Ripper, Prof., of Sheffield, 156, 175, 176, 310, 327, 349. 

Robinson, Prof. S. W., 2, 323. 

Rooms and teachers, 17. 

Runkle, Prest. J. D., 4, 174, 191, 193, 196, 198, 207, 266, 273, 277, 278, 280. 

Russian method of tool instruction, 3, 268, 277, 283. 

Russian schools, 332, 333. 

St. Louis Manual Training School. (See Manual Training School of St. Louis.) 

Saratoga address in 1882, Chap. VII. 

Saratoga address in 1883, Chap. VIII. 

School- of Mechanic Arts, Boston, 5, 191, 193, 198, 277. 

Science culture, 219, 220. 

Scientific compared with literary training, 218, 250, 253. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 207. 

Scott, Jesup W. and Susan, endow Toledo University, 340. 

Scott, William H., 340. 

Scott, Frank J., 340. 

Scott, Maurice A., 340. 

Sellew, Ralph, 9, 10, 11, 201. 

Sellew, Timothy G., 11. 

Self-sustaining schools, 195. 

Seaver, Supt. Edwin A., 223, 311. 

Shop drawings, 38. 

Shop exercises, 38-49, 60-66, 66-72, 89-104, 143-148. 

Shop, policy of, 194, 195, 293, 294, 321-323. 

Slang to be avoided, 303. 

Slojd schools of Sweden, 333. 

Soldering and brazing, 108. 

Stevens, Edwin A., endows the Institute, 3, 259. 

Stevens Institute, 2. 

Slaart, Prof., starts a shop at Cambridge, 328, 329. 

Style in English, to be cultivated, 130, 304. 

Swedish schools, 333. 

Swofford, C. C, 77. 



366 INDEX. 

Teachers, assistant, 126, 127. 

Teachers, number of, 17. 

Teachers, quaUfications of, 348, 349. 

Teachers, salaries of, 200. 

Tempering, 83, 100, 104. 

Theory of tool instruction, 275. 

Thompson, Prest. C. O., 2, 296, .332. 

Thompson, Prof. Sylvanus P., 187, 192, 193. 

Thurston, Prof. R. H., 177, 290, 295. 

Toledo Manual Training School, 13, 68, 168, 169, 173, 177, 335, 340, 341, 

cost of, 344. 

course of study for girls, 344, 352, 353. 

department for girls, 341. 

daily program, 354. 

plans of, 340-347. 
Trade schools, 233, 268, 269, 272, 273. 
Tulane High School, 15, 169. 

Walberg, Mr., 280. 

Walker, Gen. Francis A., 221, 306, 307, 313, 355-357. 

Walker, Stephen A., 190, 192. 

Washington University introduces shop-work, 3, 4, 259, 285. 

White, Mr. Charles F., 60, 108-125. 

White, Supt. E. E., views of, 317, 318. 

Whitworth, Sir Joseph, founds scholarships, 260. 

Wickersham, Supt. J. P., 265. 

Winsliip, Dr. A. E., views of, 173. 

Winthrop, Theodore, 276, 277. 

Wood-carving exercises, 66-72. 

Wood-carving tools, 67. 

Woods to be used, 36, -58, 59. 

Wood-turning, 54-66. 

Wood-turning, directions for, 56. 

Wood-turning, exercises in, 60-65. 

Wood-working, a lesson in, 33-35. 

Wood-working, care of tools, 31. 

Wood-working, cost of outfit, 28, 29. 

Wood-working, method of instruction, .30-38. 

Wood-working shop, 25, 29. 

Wood-working shop, cut of, ^fi. 

Wood-working tools, lists and prices, 27~29o 

Worcester Free Institute, 1, 2, 246. 

Youmans, Dr. E. L., 185, 225. 



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